AI is the one thing everyone is talking about from our small circles to even in offices. This has been the talk of town and might be for the next few years. At the same time development of AI is growing at a really fast rate and it is projected that in the next few years we will have way improved AI models than what we have now. As we seek to improve AI we might as well need to improve the various policies in the various countries. Various continents have already started this process and it is bearing fruit as even people in Effective Altruism are involved in these summits and are consulted before some of these policies are made. In Africa nonetheless it may seem that this is taking ages to be worked on. There may be multiple reasons for this from infrastructure challenges to limited financial resources to ignorant policy makers who do not think this issues require attention.
This might be sad considering more than 2400 companies in Africa are specializing in AI, in which 41% are startups and their estimated contributions to the continent's GDP by 2030 is US$ 1.5 billion. Doesn’t such an industry require policies to govern it before it gets out of hand?
The main challenge in Africa’s policy making process is the slow and cumbersome policy-making processes, often brought about by corruption and lack of political will.This has led to very many policies approved or even rejected over the years.
I really hope governments in the coming years will really look into this space so as to be able to shape policies for Ethical AI Development in Africa. Looking forward to the day this will happen.
