Inequality and AI
Inequality is getting worse
Two articles recently caught my eye, both providing data on how inequality, both within the United States and globally, is increasing. And both point to AI as a contributing factor.
It is not that AI has created inequality. Our economies have forever created gaps between the haves and the have-nots. But AI has exacerbated the problem.
Listen to this from another Substack post: “Artificial intelligence is making inequality worse nationally and globally, but diverse high-quality data, better access, inclusive practices, and strong regulation can help make algorithms better.” In other words, it is up to us. We CAN make things better, we can reduce the level of inequality if we choose to do so. Even use AI to accomplish this goal.
And now the United Nations Development Program, an important arm of the UN, has weighed in with its report, called “The Next Great Divergence.” From the report: “AI, like past general-purpose technologies, risks driving a new global divergence unless deliberate action ensures its benefits are broadly shared rather than geographically concentrated.” Again, the lesson is clear: We CAN do something about this, if we have the political will to do so.
Here is more from the report:
“Every major technological revolution arrives with a mix of hysteria and hype. In ancient Athens, Socrates worried that writing would weaken memory, an irony preserved for us only because Plato wrote his claims down. Two millennia later, Thomas Edison predicted that motion pictures would replace textbooks, believing film would teach “every branch of human knowledge.”
Both misjudged the role of technology. They focused on whether new tools would replace existing ones, rather than how capabilities would spread. Today, we replay that same binary debate. Will AI replace work, or solve every human problem? In arguing about what AI is, we ignore where it is landing and who stands to benefit.
The real issue is not the nature of the technology, but the geography of its impact. We are focused on what AI can do and not enough on where it is doing it.”
And more:
“AI is not entering a level playing field. It is arriving in a world marked by extraordinary inequality. Nowhere is this more evident than in Asia and the Pacific, the most economically diverse region globally. Incomes differ by nearly two hundred times between the richest country, Singapore, and one of the poorest, Afghanistan.
These divides shape two structural asymmetries: a capability gap and a vulnerability gap, which together amplify unequal impacts of AI across countries.”
Read the reports. And let me know what you think. And if you think others would like to read this, send it to them.
Thanks for subscribing to my newsletter. My best wishes, Alan
The Vatican has issued a long statement about AI – a summary can be found at Vatican news.va
can be found at vatican.va.