The Bill Gates Foundation warned that billions of people may be left behind in AI advancements due to a lack of understanding of their languages and living conditions. In its annual report titled "Goalkeepers Report 2026," the foundation emphasized that the rapid use of AI could widen the gap between the rich and the poor unless this technology is specifically designed to serve individuals living in the poorest countries in the world.
Inequality in Educational Data
Over 90 percent of the data used to train early large language models comes from English-language sources. Advanced AI speech recognition systems have less than 6 percent error in English, while in Yoruba, which is widely spoken in Nigeria and other parts of West Africa, the error rate is ten times higher.
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Adverse Effects of Technology in Poor Countries
The foundation also found that AI tools may fail if they are transferred from wealthy countries to poor countries without local data. For example, a system designed for a commercial farmer in Iowa may not be able to understand the crops, pests, markets, or challenges faced by a small farmer in Ethiopia.
The foundation's report also warns that if left to the market, AI tools are likely to be built first for individuals and entities that can afford them, not for those who need them the most. However, this technology could help alleviate significant shortages such as doctors, teachers, and agricultural advisors in poor countries.
The Bill Gates Foundation has committed to allocating at least one billion dollars over the next two years for efforts to provide greater access to AI, including in the areas of health, education, agriculture, and digital infrastructure, including local language data.
Bill Gates stated in the report, "AI can be a force for equality or it can widen the gaps. This is not a long-term prediction; it is a choice in the present. He added, "Decisions made in the next 12 to 18 months about how to build, finance, and deploy AI will determine whether this technology primarily benefits those who are currently reaping the most rewards or reaches those who benefit the least."
Initial projects include an AI system that has improved diagnostic accuracy in clinics in Kenya, educational tools that showcase large learning businesses in Sierra Leone and the United States, and an agricultural service now used by over 740,000 farmers in India.
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Source: independent.co.uk
