Inclusive AI is necessary: Can it be achieved?
A collection of essays published by both McGill University and University of Virginia, and edited by Ana Brandusescu and Jess Reia, featuring essays from participants of the AI in the City: Building Civic Engagement and Public Trust symposium.
I contributed an essay in “The AI in the City” project to question, challenge, and envision ways public trust and meaningful civic engagement can flourish and persist as data and AI become increasingly pervasive in our lives. My essay focused on weather we can achieve true inclusive AI. Other notable contributors included, Thakur, Dhanaraj, Sambuli, Nanjira, etc.
How AI is Transforming Africa’s Political Landscape
This compiled collection is the result of a collaboration between Democracy in Africa and the Stanford’s Digital Civil Society Lab., and was co-edited by Nic Cheeseman (University of Birmingham) and Lisa Garbe (University of St Gallen).
I contributed to this collection of essays, which summarised and advanced the latest research and policy debates of complex interplay between digital technologies, politics, and society, enabling a fresh and timely understanding of some of the biggest issues facing the continent today – from internet shutdowns and AI regulation to social media mobilization, disinformation, and government surveillance. Other contributors included leading leading scholars and civil society voices, such as Julie Owono, Nanjala Nybola, ‘Gbenga Sesan.
Free Basics in Real Life: Six case studies on Facebook’s internet “On Ramp” initiative from Africa, Asia and Latin America.
In 2017, I co-led, with Ellery Roberts Biddle, a team of six researchers to measure Facebook’s (Meta) Free Basics against collectively-developed benchmarks of usability, quality of connection, language and accessibility, content, and privacy/data policies. Each researcher used and evaluated the app in their home country, and wrote a brief case study summarizing their findings. The full research report reflects our collective findings and analysis.
Artificial Intelligence in Sub-Saharan Africa: Ensuring Inclusivity
This research was funded and produced during my fellowship program with Paradigm Initiative’s Digital Rights and Inclusion Learning Lab.
The research highlighted the need to broaden the inclusivity spectrum in AI initiatives, such as gender, economic status, ethnicity, religious differences, sexual orientation and education. It also provides governments, civil society groups, technology companies, etc. novel ways of developing inclusive AI systems, policies and national AI strategies.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Inclusive Innovation: Examining Contemporary AI Initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa.
This research was conducted during my graduate school at University of Alberta.
This research study established that there is an intention of making AI initiatives in the region more inclusive. However, there are also factors impeding the achievement of this goal. Some of the factors identified through this study include the high cost of innovating for low-income groups compared to the low cost of innovating for affluent communities. Other factors include the non-existence of comprehensive national AI policies or strategies in sub-Saharan Africa that ensure AI initiatives are more inclusive in their design and implementation of AI products.
Kofi Yeboah 