The Just AI Lab, part of the second phase of the Africa Just AI project, interrogates Artificial Intelligence (AI) governance through the lens of justice, inclusion, and African agency, through the Just AI Framework of Inquiry (FoI)— a tool for policymakers, technology developers and researchers to ensure that the entire AI value chain actively protects, promotes and fulfils the full spectrum of human rights and environmental sustainability.
Applying the Just AI framework requires acknowledging and addressing global systemic and emergent inequities, through regulating and developing AI so that it is restorative and inclusive, maximises opportunities and benefits for all, minimises harms and requires the ethics of care in the public interest.
Research agenda
Aiding this effort towards more inclusive AI governance approaches, the Lab’s purpose is to refine the Just AI FoI through cross-sector engagement with the public and private sectors. By engaging multidisciplinary stakeholders to actively co-develop the concept and application, the framework will be shaped by diverse and widely representative contributions, thereby assisting in the development of a robust public-interest resource for equitable and just AI governance in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region and beyond.
The following learnings evidenced by our Africa Just AI project, inform our interventions for the Just AI Lab:
- Current AI governance regimes are inadequate to ensure human dignity and safeguard populations from the unique risks and harms of AI systems.
- The design and governance of AI systems are based on Western epistemologies and contexts.
- AI systems extract value from individuals, communities and nations in Africa without reciprocal benefit, input or control over the development, deployment and use of such systems.
- AI systems pose both threats and benefits to the just energy transition and general socio-economic development goals in Africa.
Research approach
The Just AI lab applies these learnings through a collaborative and multistakeholder approach, using a series of country-specific policy analyses for national AI strategies, as well as open forums and workshops with governments, policymakers, civil society organisations and research networks. These engagements translate abstract global AI principles and human rights instruments into national policies and regulations that are tailored to local conditions. This process ensures the Just AI framework is not a static academic document, but a dynamic and responsive tool that is co-created with the very communities it aims to serve.
