Inclusive AI/ML Technologies for Global Development

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies are at the cutting edge of the 21st century innovation. They are already revolutionising finance, healthcare, agriculture, environment and even politics in both global North and global South, increasing the chance for achieving some sustainable development goals (SDGs). Yet, the use of AI/ML algorithms for global development raises a plethora of moral issues around exclusion and challenges fundamental values of fairness, privacy, and autonomy. This paper addresses the question of how inclusive AI/ML technologies for global development can be. It argues that AI/ML technologies can be inclusive to the extent that they meet the requirements of relational egalitarian justice in innovation. If these technologies promote algorithmic oppression, coloniality, bias, domination, and hierarchies, then they can raise legitimate claims of injustice which need to be investigated and rectified. To do so, AI/ML systems might be designed in accordance with bottom-up principles of equity, recognition, and participation. Through these systems, relational injustices might be potentially identified and rectified. Our argument has two main implications for public policy. On the one hand, policy makers are tasked with identifying and rectifying relational injustices and on the other, they are obliged to find resources to distribute for developing and maintaining such technologies.