A new investigative documentary has been released about artificial intelligence (AI) in Ghana, after a major global poll revealed concerns from the country’s population about its dangers.
Details
The documentary “AI: Saving Lives and Languages in Ghana”, by an award-winning reporter Sophia Smith Galer, examines the attitudes and experiences behind Ghanaians’ negative perceptions of artificial intelligence. It delves into findings from the Global Risk Poll, a global study of human safety risks from Lloyd’s Register Foundationwhich highlighted that many Ghanaians felt that AI would do more harm than good in the next 20 years.
By The Numbers
The poll, which 125,000 were polled People in 121 countries in many subjects, he found that 47% of respondents in Ghana believed that artificial intelligence was potentially harmful compared to 28% who found it useful. Given the country’s pioneering role in the development of new artificial intelligence systems – it is home to the first Google Artificial Intelligence Lab in Africa, which opened in 2019 – these results are further explored in Sophia’s new documentary.
Because this matters
Sophia’s documentary is the result of Lloyd’s Register Foundation’s call for creative content creators and journalists to tell the human stories behind the Global Risk poll.
It examines the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in various applications, including bridging the gap in translation applications and services that have previously neglected Ghana’s linguistic diversity.
…the findings from Ghana really stood out to me. With an AI-positive government and a strong developer community, you’d perhaps expect a similarly positive view from Ghanaians as a whole, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
Sophia Smith Galer
This includes Sophia reviewing the project back Khayathe first translation app for Ghanaian languages and of Wikimedia efforts to expand the presence of the West African Dagbani language online.
At the same time, Sophia visits the biotech company based in Accra MinoHealth AI Labs to learn more about applying AI in healthcare to make screening and diagnoses faster. Filming also takes place at a press conference at Google’s AI lab in Africa to see how AI is improving data on critical infrastructure and forecasting severe weather in the region.
What they say
“Data from the Lloyd’s Register Foundation’s global AI risk survey showed a clear trend in which nations at the forefront of AI development were more confident about it and those lagging behind less.“, he explains Sophia.
“With that in mind, the findings from Ghana really stood out to me. With an AI-positive government and a strong developer community, you’d perhaps expect a similarly positive view from Ghanaians as a whole, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
“I wanted to know why this happened as AI is a topic I am very interested in and there are many positive examples of AI being developed and used in the country to empower people. I therefore proposed to the Lloyd’s Register Foundation that I investigate these findings further and was delighted when they approved my proposal. Thanks to their mission, I was able to spend two weeks in Ghana, looking at different AI projects and investigating why this skepticism existssmall.”
Ed Morrow, Senior Campaigns Manager at Lloyd’s Register Foundation, said: “As Sophia’s new documentary makes clear, AI-based innovation is emerging rapidly across Ghana. However, to realize the full potential and benefits that AI can offer, the general population’s skepticism needs to be understood and addressed.
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