ABSTRACT
The genesis of AI poses risks of reinforcing the existing inequities between the Global North and South. The chapter warns of a new form of colonisation where the Global South provides the skilled labour required for the development of AI while the Global North reaps benefits owing to its economic advantage leading to a “brain drain” from the South and labour exploitation. Three major scenarios – competing nations, profit-driven private companies and the survival-of-the-fittest bias – threaten to increase these inequities. The chapter further draws on Indian and Kenyan experiences and their national strategies around AI to explore how the Global South can avoid the inequities of the past. We propose certain recommendations to counter the global challenges, such as region-specific AI solutions, building south-south alliances, and retaining rights over data from the Global South to accruing benefits of the data when it is used, firm national AI policies for countries in the Global South and investment in research.
