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A new research agenda for African generative AI

Nature Human Behaviour volume 7, pages 1839–1841 (2023)Cite this article

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The rise of generative AI requires a research agenda grounded in the African context to determine locally relevant strategies for its development and use. With a critical mass of evidence on the risks and benefits that generative AI poses to African societies, the scaled use of this new technology might help to reduce rising global inequities.

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Acknowledgements

This Comment arose out of a workshop entitled ‘Designing an Approach and Methodology for Building Evidence for the Responsible Design and Use of Generative AI for Sustainable Development in Low-Resourced Contexts’, at which the authors participated. The workshop was organised by Research ICT Africa with support and funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and was held as a side event of the AfricAI Conference in June 2023 in Kigali, Rwanda, hosted by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ), International Development Research Centre of Canada and Niyel.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research ICT Africa, Cape Town, South Africa

    Rachel Adams, Moremi Nkosi, Diana Nyakundi, Nawal Omar, Zara Schroeder & Araba Sey

  2. Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Rachel Adams

  3. Information Law and Policy Centre, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London, London, UK

    Rachel Adams

  4. Bennett Institute for Public Policy, Department of Politics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Ayantola Alayande

  5. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Zameer Brey, Brantley Browning, Olubunmi Okunowo, Shreya Shirude & Eric Tutu Tchao

  6. Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria, South Africa

    Michael Gastrow & Paul Plantinga

  7. Responsible Artificial Intelligence Lab, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

    Jerry John Kponyo, Henry Nunoo-Mensah & Andrew Selasi Agbemenu

  8. Digital Futures Lab, Panaji, India

    Dona Mathew

  9. University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria

    Victor Odumuyiwa & Kemi Omotubora

  10. 8 GIZ, FAIR Forward - Artificial Intelligence for All, Bonn, Germany

    Philipp Olbrich

  11. OpenUp, Cape Town, South Africa

    Gabriella Razzano

  12. Mozilla Foundation, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Kristophina Shilongo

  13. International Development Research Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Matthew Smith

  14. Huzalabs, Kigali, Rwanda

    Davy K. Uwizera

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  1. Rachel Adams
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  20. Araba Sey
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  23. Matthew Smith
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rachel Adams.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Adams, R., Alayande, A., Brey, Z. et al. A new research agenda for African generative AI. Nat Hum Behav 7, 1839–1841 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01735-1

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