A student at a medical training college in Kenya uses his mobile phone to take a photo of a doctor on his way to the Ministry of Health headquarters holding a placard and protesting for better wages and working conditions in the capital Nairobi on April 16. Students who screamed, 2024. Hundreds of hospital doctors have taken to the streets of Kenya’s capital to demonstrate as a nationwide doctors’ strike approaches its fourth week. (Photo credit: SIMON MAINA/AFP) (Photo credit: SIMON MAINA/AFP, Getty Images)
AFP (via Getty Images)
In just one Tweet, you can see everything that’s currently going wrong with artificial intelligence.
Elizabeth Laraki posted on X/Twitter about a bad experience she had with AI. Elizabeth Laraki is scheduled to speak at an (unnamed) UX/AI conference later this year, and I came across an ad for the event with the photo she provided. However, this was not the case. The images used in the tweets were slightly different. Her original photo showed a properly dressed businesswoman, but the doctored image showed her shirt unbuttoned, revealing the hem of her bra.
Who is this rogue airbrusher? Women working in tech won’t be surprised to learn that, ironically, the villain is artificial intelligence itself. It turns out that the organizers used AI tools to crop and resize the images, automatically determining that Elizabeth looked far more racial than she had previously hoped. What could cause AI to behave in such an inappropriate and sexist way? Simple: Many images of women online are sexual, leading AI to believe that women should be like this. are trained.
AI airbrushing makes a difference
X (Twitter)
This may seem worryingly peripheral to the ethical and practical challenges we face in an AI-enabled future (although all inherent anti-women bias of absolute central importance to women). But this issue highlights an issue that affects almost everyone other than white people in the Global North: the inherent bias that ultimately stems from the issue of AI representation.
The good news is that things are changing rapidly. Women are increasingly represented at all levels of AI and Web3, including founders and CEOs. So let’s go find the next generation of female tech talent. What better place to start than Africa?
inspirational woman
This week I announced the winners of ‘Most Inspirational Women in Web3 and AI’ at Singularity South Africa. The 135 honorees are made up of women who are playing a central role in shaping the future we will all soon live in.
What’s particularly encouraging is how many of these inspirational women hold top positions as CEOs or founders. This shows that our young industry is making great strides towards fair and equal representation, but it clearly has a long way to go before it approaches parity with men.
Now that we’ve announced our Most Inspiring List at Singularity South Africa in Johannesburg, we’d like to talk about our choice of venue. Because it tells another important story about the future of representation in AI.
A summary is provided here. “We are hosting an event to celebrate inspiring women in AI and Web3 around the world, but especially in Africa, which is critical to driving innovation and economic growth on the continent. By fostering diversity in our communities, we can tap into a wider range of talent and perspectives.” Such initiatives will lead to more inclusive and effective technology solutions, and foster the next generation of African technology leaders. It will not only provide inspiration for the industry, but also help bridge the gender gap in the industry, ultimately contributing to Africa’s digital transformation and economic development,” said co-owner Mike Mann. CEO of Singularity South Africa.
the rise of africa
Our decision to present this year’s Inspirational Women at Singularity in South Africa was a natural one. It is one of the most prestigious technology events on a continent that is poised to become a powerhouse of global innovation.
With more than 60% of Africa’s population under the age of 25, the continent is poised to become a major source of technology talent in the coming years. The World Economic Forum predicts that by 2035, there will be more young people in Africa each year than in the rest of the world combined.
Africa, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, is emerging as a world leader in cryptocurrency adoption and innovation. The region ranks highly in the Global Adoption Index, with Nigeria maintaining its position as the second-largest cryptocurrency market in the world. Cryptocurrencies, particularly stablecoins, are widely used for practical purposes such as corporate payments, hedging inflation, and facilitating cross-border transactions.
Digitally generated image of a dark-skinned hand passing through a portal and touching a robotic hand. … (+) Metaverse and Web3.0 concepts.
getty
XYO, a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN), is making a huge impact across the continent by enabling smartphone users to earn cryptocurrencies through data collection. This technology provides life-changing income for many participants, from paying down their mortgages to starting their own businesses, and has the potential to transform entire communities by connecting them to the global data economy.
XYO’s work also addresses data bias by incorporating more African data into global datasets, contributing to a more inclusive and human-centered understanding of the world. Markus Levin, co-founder of XYO, said: “To date, we have 434,998 XYO data nodes across Africa, and together they have generated millions of dollars in revenue with XYO. I am excited to hear all their individual stories Africa is at the heart of XYO’s expansion strategy and we see great potential across the DePIN ecosystem. ”
Marcus Levin, XYO Co-Founder
XYO
Sub-Saharan Africa is leading the world in DeFi adoption due to the need for accessible financial services in regions where traditional banking is limited. Stablecoins have become extremely important in countries facing foreign exchange crises and currency fluctuations, accounting for around 43% of total trading volume in the region.
Africa’s real-world crypto use cases provide valuable lessons for global markets and position the continent as a potential future leader in crypto innovation and financial inclusion.
Africa’s technology sector is often ignored, or worse, ignored. That’s a big short-sighted mistake. Indeed, the continent faces some significant challenges, not least its relatively underdeveloped digital infrastructure. But what they may lack in connections, they more than make up for in talent and ingenuity (a fact reflected in the number of African winners and nominees for this year’s Inspirational Women). ). Africa has a thriving AI industry, with developers applying the technology in incredibly creative and breakthrough ways to solve specific regional challenges, with a particular focus on healthcare.
I can only scratch the surface of Africa’s burgeoning AI sector, but I’m particularly excited about projects that use this technology to better tailor and deliver medicines and vaccines to local populations. One example is Ocular, an app that uses a 3D-printed adapter that connects a smartphone camera to a microscope and uses predictive AI to determine whether a lesion on the cervix is cancerous. This is a perfect example of an African solution to an African challenge, leveraging existing technology and infrastructure.
This does not mean that AI solutions in Africa are only locally relevant. Indeed, these countries face many of the same challenges as other Global South countries, so there is great potential for AI to become one of the continent’s most lucrative exports. No wonder a recent report from Google estimates that artificial intelligence (AI) could contribute more than $30 billion to sub-Saharan Africa’s economy in the coming years.
Without education, there is no representation.
None of this is to deny that Africa faces major obstacles on its way to becoming a global hub for AI. We have already mentioned infrastructure challenges, and these are not easy to overcome. Internet access across sub-Saharan Africa is patchy to say the least. About two-thirds of people in Southern Africa use the internet, but in Central Africa that number drops to just 24% and in West Africa it’s around 30%.
Connectivity is critical not only to the functionality of AI agents and services, but also to the success of AI. If we want to develop truly representative AI, we need to reach those who have, by definition, been excluded from the digital revolution thus far. That’s why the next frontier for AI is education, and why we’re seeing huge investments across Africa in efforts to develop the next generation of talent (especially women!).
Groups such as Data Science Nigeria, Data Science Africa, and South Africa’s Deep Learning Indaba contribute significantly to hosting conferences and training events, providing research grants to regional AI projects, and awarding mentorship, grants, and awards. I’m making a contribution. Unstoppable Women of AI / Web3 (an organization I founded and supports Inspirational Women) is also doing its part, and our commitment to bring Web3 and Metaverse education to 6 million women in Africa over the next five years. I am proud to be contributing to this. year.
This is just the beginning of a long journey to eliminate dangerous bias from AI and ensure that it provides equal benefits to everyone, regardless of gender, race, nationality, sexuality, or other characteristics. But when we look at Africa’s burgeoning AI sector and our inspiring women winners, we know we are moving in the right direction.
Elizabeth Laraki’s story is just one relatively small example of what happens when an entire group of people is ignored by AI. That’s what expression means to me. It’s not just a check-the-box exercise that gives equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) practitioners something to justify their exorbitant salaries. For women, for Africans, and for many other marginalized groups, it means that our perspectives, opinions, experiences, and, of course, leadership are at the forefront of the most significant technological and social revolution of our lifetimes. It’s about making sure you stand up.
