The (New) Digital Divide
For centuries, our world has been divided by power struggles; from the Cold War to President Trump’s aggressive foreign policy that includes unilateral trade wars, our world incessantly has undergone the unequal and unjust power divides. Subsequently, developing nations continue to live under poverty, unable to implement a technology that helps the rest of the world move forward while developed countries seize every opportunity to exploit the former of their resources. Such global divide has taken another step, exacerbating the gap of inequality, as the wealthy nations are devoted to expanding their powers through the digital arms race, which specifically involves artificial intelligence. Countries such as the United States and China are the forerunners of the AI race as their AI business dominates not only the domestic markets but also the global community.
According to a New York Times article titled “The Global A.I Divide,” America controls up to two-thirds of global AI power, while China follows closely in second and countries from the EU hold on to a tiny sliver of the global AI industry. The rest of the world is falling behind the digital arms race as their opportunity to invest in and benefit from AI business is shrinking. Their lack of resources and access to AI will also make themselves geopolitically vulnerable as the global AI industry driven by two leading nations will have the power to reshape their political landscapes.
Global leaders of the new technological era need to address this problem before the gap becomes too wide (and late) to fix; whether it be requiring the leading companies to provide resources for countries falling behind or stunting the rapid growth of the industry on the market through taxes and bills, effective measures need to be taken to continue pursuing and building a global democracy. Companies such as OpenAI and Nvidia have pledged to help close the divide by working on making their technology more accessible; yet, it is still nowhere enough to help create a large-enough impact to give the needed boost for lesser developed countries. Name-value mega-corps such as Google and Amazon and Chinese tech giants such as Tencent, Alibaba and Huawei control nearly all AI usage and development in the world, yet do not even address the issues of the digital divide.
Closing the gap will take time. Just as it took years for the internet and cell phones to be implemented in developing countries after developing nations, bringing AI to these countries will take time. Years of persistent production and implementation have led developing countries in South America and Africa to slowly yet surely make progress.
However, AI is unlike any technology we’ve seen before. The power AI holds is indefinite and is capable of reshaping our future in much larger ways. The Digital divide is visible today. Developing countries have fallen behind and the rate of their lagging will grow ruthlessly and the social, technological and economical disparity between countries will become unmendable, possibly putting an end to our global democracy.
