Technology is driving inequality
The world has a chance to set a new course so that everyone benefits from artificial intelligence
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the world has grown increasingly reliant on artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Thousands of new innovations — from contact-tracing apps to the drones delivering medical equipment — sprang up to help us meet the challenges of Covid-19 and life under lockdown.
The unprecedented speed with which a vaccine for Covid-19 was discovered can partly be attributed to the use of AI algorithms which rapidly crunched the data from thousands of clinical trials, allowing researchers around the world to compare notes in real time.
As Satya Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft observed, in just two months, the world witnessed a rate of digital transition we’d usually only see in two years.
In 2017, PWC published a study showing that AI technologies could increase global gross domestic product by 14% by 2030.
AI technologies also have the potential to drive sustainable development and even out inequalities, democratising access to healthcare and education, mitigating the effects of climate change and making food production and distribution more efficient.
But, unfortunately, the potential of “AI for good” is not being realised. As research published by the International Monetary Fund last year shows, today, AI technologies are more likely to exacerbate global inequalities than to address them. Or, in the words of the speculative fiction writer, William Gibson: “The future is here, it’s just unevenly distributed”.
To ensure these technologies are developed in a human-centred way, we need equal education, actionable regulation, and true inclusion.
These objectives are very far from being met on a global scale, and certainly are not met everywhere in Africa. This presents a serious moral dilemma. Do we throw all caution to the wind and focus exclusively on becoming a global player in AI technology advancement as fast as possible, or do we pause and consider what measures are needed to ensure our actions will not imperil vulnerable sectors of our society?
The scramble to develop technologies in the hubs of San Francisco, Austin, London and Beijing took place in a more or less unregulated Wild West until very recently.
Now, the world is waking up. In June last year, United Nations secretary general António Guterres laid out a roadmap for digital cooperation, acknowledging that the responsibility for reaching a global agreement on the ethical development of AI rested on the shoulders of the UN’S Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco).
A diverse group of 24 specialists from six regions of the world led a consultation with experts from over 150 countries, which included the private sector and big tech companies. Building on their findings they produced a Global Recommendation on the Ethics of AI.
If adopted by Unesco’s 193 member states, this agreement on technology development will be groundbreaking: instead of competing with one another to corner the market on bigger and faster technology, countries
will be united by a new common vision— to develop human-centred, ethical artificial intelligence.
One of the biggest obstacles to realising the hope of AI for social good is the silencing of some voices in a debate that should be a universal one.
Africa’s best and brightest have been excluded from contributing to the conversation in various ways, ranging from difficulties in getting visas to not being included in international networks.
Important work is being done in Africa by, for example, Data Science Africa and the Deep Learning Indaba. This work is often overlooked by the international community.
In addition, in December last year, after a high-profile parting of ways with Google, Timnit Gebru, the highly regarded ethics researcher, expressed deep concern about the possibility of racial discrimination being amplified by AI technologies.
“Unless there is some sort of shift of power, where people who are most affected by these technologies are allowed to shape them as well and be able to imagine what these technologies should look like from the ground up and build them according to that, unless we move towards that kind of future, I am really worried that these tools are going to be used more for harm than good.”
His fears are born out by a plethora
of examples that range from racist facial recognition technology to racist predictive policing tools and financial risk analysis. Gebru makes the call that technical communities should be more diverse and inclusive, because inherent structural bias in training data would then have a bigger chance of being picked up.
It is also becoming clear that every person has a role in ensuring that innovation in the field upholds human rights, such as the right to privacy, or the right not to be racially discriminated against.
Every person should have access to education, should be sensitised to the ethics of AI and be information literate; every person should be able to participate in technological invention and be protected against possible harm from technologies.
Regulations need to be actionable, legally enforceable and as dynamic as the ethics underpinning them. First, we must guard against lofty ideals that are alien to the world of mathematics and algorithms that computer engineers inhabit.
It’s key we acknowledge the active multi- and interdisciplinary nature of the discipline of AI in its full extension in our classrooms, places of work, and governmental settings.
Second, regulation should be armed with legal force. It is too easy to shirk regulations by citing in-house policies, or shifting some development to countries with weaker legislation in some areas.
Third, AI ethics regulation should be supple enough to absorb future technological advances as well as changes in the AI readiness status of different countries which ranges along a continuum of scientific, technological, educational, societal, cultural, infrastructure, economic, legal, regulatory dimensions.
Since any new AI application can be bought or sold anywhere in the world, and since “ethics dumping”, which refers to big companies taking their business where regulation is weaker, is a real thing in Africa, the new rule book on how AI technologies are developed, must be a global rule book.
As Teki Akuetteh Falconer, Ghanaian lawyer and executive director of Africa Digital Rights Hub said: “I’m a data protection regulator but unable to call big tech companies to order because they’re not even registered in my country.”
If Unesco’s states adopt the ethics recommendations, it may pave the way for realising the potential of AI technologies benefiting us all.
Emma Ruttkamp-bloem is head of the University of Pretoria’s philosophy department, leads the ethics group at the Centre for AI Research and is a member of Unesco’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology and of the African Union panel on emerging technologies. These are her own views.
Tembeka Ngcukaitobi’s name is synonymous with being one of the best legal minds in South Africa. He enjoys a successful, busy career as an advocate. Why then would he be bothered by the affairs of his alma mater, an institution that he left more than two decades ago?
Ngcukaitobi graduated with a law degree from the University of Transkei (Unitra), now Walter Sisulu University, in 1999. In 1997 he was the president of the student representative council (SRC).
He said after he left he did not bother about what was happening at the university. It was only when the institution started losing accreditation for a some of its qualifications — including the LLB degree — that Ngcukaitobi started following affairs of his alma mater with interest.
“I thought, actually, the tendency of former graduates not to pay attention to their former universities may threaten the validity of their qualifications,” he says “So I became interested in what was happening, but at that time I did not stand for any position but was part of the activities of the alumni association.”
In 2017, the Council for Higher Education stopped the university from offering law degrees when, in its assessment, it had found that the university had under-qualified lecturers and its lecturer halls were not suitable for use. The council re-accredited the qualification in 2019 after the institution had satisfied it that it had met the required standards.
In June 2019, there was an election for new leaders of the convocation and he accepted nomination to become the president and was elected. “I was happy to accept the nomination because at least it would give me an opportunity to play a role inside rather than as an external observer,” he says.
He does not see it as giving back, because people who have graduated from previously disadvantaged universities do not have that “luxury”.
“The fact of the matter is that if it was not for a university like Unitra, at the time, many of us would simply have not got a university education at all, either because we would not qualify academically or we would simply not be able to afford fees,” he says. “So if you want to sustain accessibility of higher education in the former Bantustans then you have to keep a functional university even if the focus of that university is teaching and not necessarily research.”
For him, not having a functional Walter Sisulu University means that students who can’t go to the affluent universities are deprived of a chance to get a higher education.
“The truth is that in this country without a basic degree your prospects in life are rather bleak. So I do not see myself as giving back, I see myself discharging a responsibility of being a graduate from a black university.”
As the president he could assess the difficulties facing the university. He lists three that stood out.
One of the problems, which he says is structural, is how the university has struggled to shift from being an institution created to serve a Bantustan civil service to become a modern developmental university. He says the merger between Unitra, Border Technikon and Eastern Cape Technikon to form Walter Sisulu University also complicated things.
“So combining those two things has really been a structural problem for how the university will model itself in a development setting.”
Ngcukaitobi says the department of higher education’s funding formula is “largely biased against black universities”, because most of these institutions are not research intensive. The department might argue that there are grants targeted at previously disadvantaged universities, but he believes that is no match for the funding that universities that produce research receive. The funding formula needs to be significantly revised, according to Ngcukaitobi.
The third problem was: “On the internal side you have a problem of poor leadership, poor financial management, a problem of lack of vision, lack of direction, poor qualifications of lecturers and also poorly prepared students.”
One of the things that shocked him was the poor state of student residences, describing them as “slum conditions”. (New residences are now being built.)
He says more than 60% of lecturers do not have a masters and the curriculum is not aligned to the needs of the country. “People are still being taught about cheques; cheques have been discontinued for years ...”
But there is a new sheriff in town and the university is about to be shaken up. Not only was Ngcukaitobi appointed the chairperson of the council — the highest decisionmaking body — in December, but the university also has a new vicechancellor in Professor Rushiella Nolundi Songca, who took over the reigns from Professor Rob Midgley this month.
“It is very exciting. New vicechancellor, new chair of council. It is truly an exciting moment to watch the progress of the university and also do something about it,” says Ngcukaitobi.
He says he is well aware that some of the difficulties the university faces might not be resolved now — especially the structural ones — but part of the reason he agreed to stand for the position was he agreed with those who said the university needed energy, leadership and vision.
One of the things he hopes to do in his tenure as the chair of council is to make sure that the systems of the university work.
“It is a very modest goal but very crucial for a place like Walter Sisulu University in order to ensure it runs smoothly.”
Ngcukaitobi says that because most of the systems at the university do not run well he is finding himself, as council chair, having to deal with mundane issues that he should not have to deal with at his level.
“I was entertaining an issue from Sasco [South African Students Congress] the other day in Mthatha, about the allocation of seats [in the SRC], and the problem was that management was not allowing them to have a meeting.
“So in a different place like UCT [University of Cape Town] there are systems; those problems do not go to the chairperson of council. But I do not have the luxury of refusing to entertain them on the basis that they belong to a lower level, because we are fixing the deep-seated structural problems, and that is why I want to place emphasis on getting the systems to run without the intervention of managers and without the intervention of leadership.”
Another one of his goals is to stop the corruption where staff or members of council are found to have business interests with the university.
“We need to make sure that the money of the university is spent on what it should be spent on and is not stolen.”