Language: English (mozilla)
Today, conversations about the significance of Artificial Intelligence have expanded from a narrow focus on its importance to the economy to the potentially negative impact of the technology on social justice and equality.
In Africa, a major aspect of the conversation involves the exclusion of women in the development of the AI and the resulting impact on the lives of African women. The absence of alternative voices in the AI industry dominated by white men, also speaks to the problem of exclusion and the deprioritisation of the needs of African women. The absence of proximity means that products and services being created through Artificial Intelligence do not centre the (pressing) needs of African women, since they are not represented in the decision making spaces.
The goal of this session is to further discussion on Pollicy’s African Women in Artificial Intelligence Project (AWiAIP) which launched in October 2021 to spark conversation about Artificial Intelligence and Gender Equality in Africa.
The project aims at initiating conversations with AI hub leaders and innovators from the private sector, academia, and civil society organizations across Africa as well as gender equality leaders on the continent.
Through this project we plan to provide insight through our research on the state of women participation in the African Artificial Intelligence development space and the beneficial and harmful effects of Artificial Intelligence integration on women.
What?
How can we centre the perspectives and needs of African women in the conversation about Artificial Intelligence on the continent?
Objectives
For the session, we would like participants to come ready to join us to achieve the following goals:
To generate and stimulate discussion about the state of women’s participation in the development of Artificial Intelligence today.
To discuss challenges and opportunities for African women working in Artificial Intelligence.
Discuss existing examples of non-Western, uniquely African Artificial Intelligence bias against African women.
To centre and deprioritise Western approaches to the AI and algorithmic bias conversation
The Decolonised AI Futures space aligns the best with our proposal due to its focus on prioritising the voices and representation of marginalised groups in the development of AI.
We believe that the exclusion of African women is extremely significant as it affects the sort of products and services being developed through AI. The absence of African women means that AI is not being made in our image or to reflect our history, needs and future imaginaries but alien ones from the West.
We believe the Decolonised AI Futures space highlights the importance of this lacuna best and this is why we have chosen to submit our proposal under this heading.
How will you deal with varying numbers of participants in your session? What if 30 participants attend? What if there are 3?:At Pollicy, we believe regardless of the number, there is the need to speak to anyone interested about the import of our work.
While larger groups mean that more word gets out, smaller groups also offer advantages for connection, mutual understanding and a laser focus on participant interaction.
What happens after MozFest? We're hoping that many efforts and discussions will continue after MozFest. Share any ideas you already have for how to continue the work from your session.:After MozFest, we are looking forward to publishing some of the questions we get during our session and answers to them as part of the existing project. This will help us to better articulate some of our thoughts about the feedback we receive during the session.
What language would you like to host your session in?:English