AI for the world, or just the West? How researchers are tackling Big Tech's global gaps

Since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in 2022, artificial intelligence (AI) has become significantly entrenched in our lives. But popular AI products are set up to serve primarily American and European interests, despite being touted as global tools democratizing access to technology, from the use cases they're applied to the languages they speak. 

Several African researchers outside tech's US nucleus are trying to challenge that status quo and, with it, the bigger power dynamics at play in the AI industry. 

A global AI power imbalance 

The Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) is an international group of researchers and technologists focused on what it calls "independent and community-rooted AI research free from Big Tech's pervasive influence." I spoke to DAIR members creating Africa-centric AI solutions that serve particular societal needs. Ultimately, they demonstrate use cases for AI that prioritize the historically dispossessed instead ...