From new datasets to debasing techniques

What’s the news from Africa?  And what are the solutions being developed there?  The start of our new webinar series with AI4D sharing the work of extraordinary African AI researchers with their counterparts and the world.

INSIDE: Algorithms based on incomplete, corrupt or biased data; models built from those algorithms that have other additional stereotypical assumptions of gender, race and class at their core; machines that learn on and codify these ingrained patterns; and the neural networks that detect more complex patterns and newly proxy old stereotypical assumptions — are wiring historic bias, inequality and discrimination into our new systems.  These will evolve into more effective, and more difficult to dismantle, digital colonial and patriarchal social structures and governance if we do not act now. 

However, this situation presents an opportunity as new systems proliferate and are being designed—to revisit old assumptions and conceive provision of social services with ideas of efficacy and equity at the core — instead of only using the ADM process to digitize old programs opting perhaps for only making them more ‘efficient’. 

A Feminist AI would focus on bringing social programs in line with 21st research and values, dedicated to finding ways to make the programs more effective (inclusive, transformational) as opposed to merely more ‘efficient’.  

AI4D Webinars: Gender Knowledge Synthesis

Concept: Sharing the work of extraordinary African AI researchers with their counterparts and the world, focussing on issues of primordial importance to create a more inclusive and equitable world with AI and emerging technologies.

Where: Online / Zoom

When: Every 6 weeks

Who:  African researchers from the AI4D family and researchers from Africa working on complementary issues.

What: 45 minute Roundtable with Panel format.  5 minute landscape presentations with moderated discussion followed by Q&A