A lot has been said by the public about what is good and bad about artificial Intelligence. The government spoke out about AI, during the AI National Government Summit at the University of Johannesburg during the first week of April 2024.
At the same time, a discussion document has been issued for public comment. It’s not the first time South Africa has followed the approach to deal with technological advancements that could have an impact on society. This is important and part of government responsibility to establish the rules of the game.
It’s interesting to note, however. that history tells us that this has not worked in the past.
A similar approach was followed with the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Since the World Economic Forum declared that 4IR was the next big thing, there was a move towards preparing for the big moment.
On one hand, 4IR was presented as an opportunity and threat, a commission was set up followed by a discussion document and, eventually, a centre for 4IR was established.
What the approaches have in common is that the response is always late and often misses the core issues that require attention. The challenge with all the technologies has been that they often originate from the US, with leading tech giants being based in that region.
The AI effort is similar to previous efforts to exploit opportunities presented by tech and address the harms. The response is a bit late and seems to be missing the core. It seems something different is required. There are established companies in AI from the US.
To discuss at this point and solicit views from society and, thereafter, map the way forward may yield similar results that we’ve seen on previous attempts as seen with 4IR.
Often countries outside the creator countries of the technologies have limited choices, to create or use what others have created. Of course, in this case, the government is also trying to regulate.
The challenge with this approach is simply that it’s difficult to regulate companies outside your jurisdiction, just watch how difficult it has been to regulate social media companies. In addition to that, tech companies have no great respect for the Africa region.
As matters stand, it seems there’s only one option left to be a creator as hard as it is. At some point, the goal has to focus on creating technology. A country can use tools from other countries in the process of building its own infrastructure.
Nvidia has recently unveiled AI infrastructure that can enable Sovereign AI to ensure that a country can control its data.
This means that there’s a need to support efforts to build local technology infrastructure. Such a technology can be developed in a way that it adheres to local values instead of embedding it to a technology developed elsewhere. This is one way of addressing concerns that may arise instead of throwing a rule book, institutions and commissions at them.
It’s better to build then talk and create institutions around local products instead of discussing things beyond local control and influence.
Wesley Diphoko has been working at the intersection of technology and media for FastCompany (SA). He is passionate about enabling townships to benefit from technology advancements. You can find him on X via: @WesleyDiphoko.
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