Kate Kallot, AI founder: A global digital divide?

“Historically, as a region, we’ve been extracted at two levels. If you look at the AI value chain, a lot of our youth, some who have studied computer science, are left at data labelling roles at the bottom of the value chain, where the least value is created. In a different way, a lot of our data is being extracted for free to train those systems. We want to make sure we don’t go into similar models that we had during colonisation.”

Leanna Byrne speaks to Kate Kallot, founder of the Kenyan artificial intelligence company Amini, which is building AI infrastructure across Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America.

She warns that billions of people risk being left out of the artificial intelligence systems shaping modern life, with languages, cultures and knowledge from large parts of the world underrepresented in the technology being built today.

Kate argues that AI risks repeating old patterns of global inequality, with poorer countries supplying valuable data while richer nations reap the rewards.

She explains why the Global South should help shape the future of AI, rather than simply supply the data behind it.

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