THE PI AND SCIENTIFIC DIRECTOR FOR RESPONSIBLE AI LAB (RAIL) LECTURES ON RESPONSIBLE AI AND ETHICS FROM AN AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE
Prof. Jerry John Kponyo, Principal Investigator and Scientific Director of the Responsible AI Lab (RAIL), gave a lecture on Responsible AI & Ethics from an African Perspective on 28th June 2022 at the Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence (IEAI) in Munich, Germany.
During his lecture, Prof. Kponyo highlighted some of the opportunities of AI for Africans in different sectors such as health, education, food production, transportation and public services. He stressed that a significant hindrance to African AI development is the lack of “Afrocentric” data. Data is the fuel that drives AI; most of the data used to develop AI solutions is generated from other continents. He asserted that Africans need to forge their datasets to create tailored solutions and avoid data biases.
Prof. Kponyo mentioned that RAIL seeks to be a first step in establishing a sustainable approach to nurturing local talent to engage in multidisciplinary, responsible AI for research development and innovation, focusing on women and responding to the public and private sector requirements. He added that through research projects, workshops and short courses, RAIL seeks to provide students with the required skills and knowledge regarding AI-related issues.
He focused his presentation on explaining why AI should be responsible. He indicated that responsible AI allows people to trust and accept AI solutions, ensuring that developers of AI solutions are held accountable for the actions of their products. He revealed the responsible AI considerations from an African lens as being inclusive of fairness and equity, transparency and explainability, accountability and safety, data privacy and governance, and AI solutions’ social and environmental impact.
He highlighted that it is essential to have policy frameworks that will guide the development process of AI products and that ethical issues should be considered right from the start of any AI-related project. He added that educating people on what AI is about and bringing minority groups to the table when developing AI solutions to assure inclusivity and avoid bias is essential. In his concluding remarks, Prof. Kponyo referred to the Responsible AI Network Africa, the collaborative initiative of the TUM Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence (Germany) and the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, KNUST (Ghana), which aims to bring together enthusiasts of AI from industry and academia to deliberate on how AI can be leveraged to push the fourth industrial revolution.
