South Africa was at the forefront of the launch of the new Global Index on Responsible Artificial Intelligence at a recent presidential summit in the United States.
Research ICT Africa (RIA) director, Rachel Adams, and SA deputy minister for Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Buti Manamela, launched the index at a side event of the Summit for Democracy, hosted by President Joe Biden in December.
RIA executive director Alison Gillwald said in a statement that the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)-funded Index was an important global initiative that sought to measure progress toward the responsible use and development of AI in more than 120 countries around the world.
“For RIA to be the home of this important global initiative is a very humbling but exciting opportunity to provide a distinctly global south perspective,” Gillwald said.
The Global Index on Responsible AI is a new initiative by the Data for Development Network (D4D.net), led by RIA, together with regional and international partners, with support from the IRDC and AI4DAfrica.
The Global Index will equip governments, civil society, and stakeholders to reflect on the efforts of countries to meet their human rights obligations and uphold principles for responsible use in the development and implementation of AI systems.
The need for the responsible index comes as countries struggle to keep pace with technological change as 4IR progresses, and are looking to other jurisdictions for guidance and support.
A number of authoritarian states are also misusing AI systems to undermine respect for human rights in direct contravention of established international norms.
Principles have been developed to advance the responsible use of data on multiple fronts –universal access, safety and security, data for good, consent and transparency, freedom from hate and violence, and democratic values.
The index will fairly reflect local contexts and realities and measure a country’s level of responsible AI in relation to available resources.
Gillwald also represented RIA at the recent Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Parliamentary Track on Artificial Intelligence, together with a representative of the European Parliament and an OECD AI expert.
The forum was attended by more than 150 members of parliament (MPs).
“The track demonstrated the common position parliamentarians from all parts of the world find themselves in, despite their very different contexts, on issues of data and algorithmic governance. The importance of building parliamentary capacity, so that MPs can provide the democratic oversight required to mitigate the risks associated with advanced technologies (such as AI, machine learning, and blockchain), while also redressing the uneven distribution of opportunities (and harms) these present, was probably the greatest lesson of the session,” Gillwald said.
