The two leading stories of this month’s newsletter starkly illustrate the chasm between the digital realities of people in developing and developed economies. Our Spotlight blog post unpacks the court ruling that Air Canada is liable for misleading information provided to a customer by a chatbot, while our most recent round of After Access surveys in Nigeria reveal that two-thirds of the population (approximately 80 million people) do not use the Internet. These two pieces side-by-side show the staggering vastness of global digital inequality and perhaps sums up why RIA’s work matters. As we hurtle towards an AI-generated future it is critical always to be aware of who is being left behind and what that means for us all.
Certainly, RIA’s work on the Africa Just AI Policy Project seeks to ask these questions and propose answers that acknowledge African country contexts. Through this project, we are building awareness and the local capacity to develop AI systems and govern them justly to realise people-centred, beneficial AI innovation in Africa.
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