Africa Strategic Policy and AI Resource Centre

The outcomes would be in their ability not to collate all ideas shared into one working document, harmonise existing policy documents on ethical principles into a single document and propel practical guidelines on how AI can be deployed in different sectors.

• Transparency, accountability, and human oversight
• Protection and promotion of human rights
• AI capacity-building
• Social, economic, ethical, cultural, linguistic and technical implications of AI

The risks associated with Artificial Intelligence is embedded in the black-box nature of these systems which limits transparency and accountability for liability because the AI labs rely on trade secret protection to avoid disclosing any explanation. If we are moving towards autonomous systems especially for military proposes, human oversight should be a priority. For the social, economic, ethical, cultural. linguistic and technical implications of AI, the discussion should be centred on how AI systems are developed to be inclusive without marginalising any culture or tribe, how human rights and dignity should be protected and preserved. Efforts should also be made to increase capacity building and a platform be created where the results can be implemented.

The most significant challenges and opportunities we face in Africa is the non-inclusiveness in technological development due to the infrastructural and technological constraints we face as a region. We see this play out in the voice AI tools where African characters are limited to some countries and the tone of their voices are a far cry from what an African sounds like.

One of the roles the AI Dialogue can play in advancing international cooperation on AI governance is by widening the gap of inclusion to other organisations that are not widely known but have the potential to deliver so as to foster capacity building.

I would say harmonising existing initiatives on AI principles into a single policy document. An added value this can bring is to reduce the burden of reviewing different policy documents.

We have seen dialogues from experts as well as different international organisations but one way we can begin to have a different turn around is by inviting these AI lab founders to the table. We need to discuss with them, gain insights from them and hear from them what they think about AI governance and the proper way to go about it. We are tackling this issue from the outer space but we need to face it by including everyone that matters including the developers.

I will say Africa is left out on the table as well as other countries who are Non-English speaking are underrepresented and tagged as the global south. Our initiatives at Africa Strategic Policy and AI Resource Centre is to develop frameworks and assessments that reflect the African realities.

The format used already works perfectly. We can also include written research papers and call for policy ideas that can be replicated on a country by country basis.