![](https://addisfortune.news/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Paris-summit.jpg)
Exclusive Interviews | Jun 24,2023
Mar 4 , 2023
By Robert Muggah , Gabriella Seiler and Gordon LaForge
Recent months may well be remembered as the moment when predictive artificial intelligence went mainstream. While prediction algorithms have been in use for decades, the release of applications such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT3 – and its rapid integration with Microsoft’s Bing search engine – may have unleashed the floodgates when it comes to user-friendly AI. Within weeks of ChatGPT3’s release, it had already attracted 100 million monthly users, many of whom have doubtless experienced its dark side – from insults and threats to disinformation and a demonstrated ability to write malicious code.
The chatbots that are generating headlines are just the tip of the iceberg. AIs for creating text, speech, art, and video are progressing rapidly, with far-reaching implications for governance, commerce, and civic life. Not surprisingly, capital is flooding the sector, with governments and companies investing in startups to develop and deploy the latest machine-learning tools. These new applications will combine historical data with machine learning, natural language processing, and deep learning to determine the probability of future events.
Crucially, adopting the new natural language processing and generative AIs will not be confined to the wealthy countries and companies such as Google, Meta and Microsoft that spearheaded their creation. These technologies are already spreading across low- and middle-income settings, where predictive analytics for everything from reducing urban inequality to addressing food security hold tremendous promise for cash-strapped governments, firms, and NGOs seeking to improve efficiency and unlock social and economic benefits.
The problem, however, is that there has been insufficient attention on the potential negative externalities and unintended effects of these technologies. The most obvious risk is that unprecedentedly powerful predictive tools will strengthen authoritarian regimes’ surveillance capacity.
One widely cited example is China’s "social credit system," which uses credit histories, criminal convictions, online behavior, and other data to assign a score to every person in the country. Those scores can then determine whether someone can secure a loan, access a good school, and travel by rail or air. Though China’s system is billed as a tool to improve transparency, it doubles as an instrument of social control.
Yet even when used by ostensibly well-intentioned democratic governments, companies focused on social impact, and progressive nonprofits, predictive tools can generate sub-optimal outcomes. Design flaws in the underlying algorithms and biased data sets can lead to privacy breaches and identity-based discrimination. This has already become a glaring issue in criminal justice, where predictive analytics routinely perpetuate racial and socioeconomic disparities. For example, an AI system built to help US judges assess the likelihood of recidivism erroneously determined that Black defendants are at far greater risk of re-offending than white ones.
Concerns about how AI could deepen inequalities in the workplace are also growing. So far, predictive algorithms have been increasing efficiency and profits to benefit managers and shareholders at the expense of rank-and-file workers (especially in the gig economy).
In all these examples, AI systems hold up a funhouse mirror to society, reflecting and magnifying our biases and inequities. As technology researcher Nanjira Sambuli notes, digitization tends to exacerbate, rather than ameliorate, pre-existing political, social, and economic problems.
The enthusiasm to adopt predictive tools must be balanced against informed and ethical considerations of their intended and unintended effects. Where the effects of powerful algorithms are disputed or unknown, the precautionary principle would counsel against deploying them.
We must not let AI become another domain where decision-makers ask for forgiveness rather than permission. That is why the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and others have called for moratoriums on adopting AI systems until ethical and human-rights frameworks have been updated to account for their potential harms. Crafting the appropriate frameworks will require forging a consensus on the basic principles that should inform the design and use of predictive AI tools.
Fortunately, the race for AI has led to a parallel flurry of research, initiatives, institutes and networks on ethics. And while civil society has taken the lead, intergovernmental entities such as the OECD and UNESCO have also gotten involved. The UN has been working on building universal standards for ethical AI since at least 2021. Moreover, the European Union has proposed an AI Act – the first such effort by a major regulator – which would block certain uses (such as those resembling China’s social-credit system) and subject other high-risk applications to specific requirements and oversight.
This debate has been concentrated overwhelmingly in North America and Western Europe. But lower- and middle-income countries have baseline needs, concerns, and social inequities to consider. Much research shows that technologies developed by and for markets in advanced economies are often inappropriate for less-developed economies.
If the new AI tools are simply imported and put into wide use before the necessary governance structures are in place, they could do more harm than good. All these issues must be considered if we are going to devise truly universal principles for AI governance.
Recognizing these gaps, the Igarapé Institute and New America recently launched a new Global Task Force on Predictive Analytics for Security and Development. The task force will convene digital-rights advocates, public-sector partners, tech entrepreneurs, and social scientists from the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe to define first principles for using predictive technologies in public safety and sustainable development in the Global South.
Formulating these principles and standards is just the first step. The bigger challenge will be to marshal the international, national, and subnational collaboration and coordination needed to implement them in law and practice. In the global rush to develop and deploy new predictive AI tools, harm-prevention frameworks are essential to ensure a secure, prosperous, sustainable, and human-centred future.
PUBLISHED ON
Mar 04,2023 [ VOL
23 , NO
1192]
Exclusive Interviews | Jun 24,2023
Commentaries | Apr 29,2023
My Opinion | Dec 09,2023
Viewpoints | Jun 24,2023
Viewpoints | Apr 10,2021
Exclusive Interviews | Apr 15,2023
Viewpoints | Jun 18,2022
Agenda | Jul 25,2020
Commentaries | Jan 19,2024
Viewpoints | Sep 10,2023
My Opinion | 108821 Views | Aug 14,2021
My Opinion | 105219 Views | Aug 21,2021
My Opinion | 104030 Views | Sep 10,2021
My Opinion | 103320 Views | Aug 07,2021
Jul 13 , 2024 . By AKSAH ITALO
Investors who rely on tractors, trucks, and field vehicles for commuting, transportin...
Jul 13 , 2024 . By MUNIR SHEMSU
The cracks in Ethiopia's higher education system were laid bare during a synthesis re...
Jul 13 , 2024 . By AKSAH ITALO
Construction authorities have unveiled a price adjustment implementation manual for s...
Jul 13 , 2024
The banking industry is experiencing a transformative period under the oversight of N...
Jul 20 , 2024
In a volatile economic environment, sudden policy reversals leave businesses reeling...
Jul 13 , 2024
Policymakers are walking a tightrope, struggling to generate growth and create millio...
Jul 7 , 2024
The federal budget has crossed a symbolic threshold, approaching the one trillion Bir...
Jun 29 , 2024
In a spirited bid for autonomy, the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), under its younge...
Jul 21 , 2024 . By TIZITA SHEWAFERAW
Mayor Adanech Abebie's Administration faced an audit report that unveiled a startling...
Jul 21 , 2024 . By AKSAH ITALO
Brook Taye (PhD), director general of the Ethiopian Capital Market Authority, has tak...
Jul 21 , 2024 . By AKSAH ITALO
Ethiopia's horticulture, a major source of foreign currency and employment, is facing...
Jul 21 , 2024 . By AKSAH ITALO
Commercial banks are now permitted to acquire equity shares in capital market service...