By Elesha George
How does artificial intelligence (AI) fit into a Caribbean context, and who will benefit?
Those are some of the questions that two St Lucian women will be answering when they host the inaugural AI Global South Summit from October 29-31 in St Lucia.
Kem-Laurin Lubin and Gale Rigobert are co-chairs of the not-for-profit foundation, and have extensive expertise in both AI and education.
Rigobert, an international education consultant, and a former Education Minister in St Lucia, has over a decade in academia specialising in international relations and in political leadership, while Lubin is completing her doctorate in artificial intelligence and a scholarship at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
The duo aim to spark critical conversations about AI, dispelling fears that the technology will replace human jobs and helping Caribbean nations keep pace with global technological advancements.
“The Global South always seems to be lagging behind because of lack of resources, lack of know-how, not investing adequately in research and development. So, we find ourselves being consumers and downloaders and not active participants in the creation of technology,” Rigobert explained.
“The current capitalist framework that we are forced to operate in alongside the Global North, coming largely from a place of resource disadvantage, doesn’t always put us in the right place to make the decisions that benefit us, to plan the technology we need, and to determine the price ultimately.”
The summit will explore ways to carve out a space for Caribbean countries in AI and emerging technologies, focusing on perspectives from Afro-Caribbean, Creole, and small island developing states.
Lubin emphasised the importance of representation in transformational technology, warning that a “Eurocentric view “of the world through AI development could leave the Caribbean behind.
“If you’re telling an AI to please locate or detect whether or not there are cancer cells on a skin and the AI has never learned black skin, how is that supposed to work?” she questioned.
She also pointed out the potential biases in AI that influence decisions on employment and loan access, often factoring in race and eugenics.
“We need to be cognisant of the ingredients that are being used to inform the creation and material outcomes of people being impacted by decisions that are made with AI,” she explained.
“And so, we also want to go to the root of understanding the imperialistic element of the AI that is being created to de-represent us, to de-index us. So, there is that decolonisation conversation as well as sustainability concerns because when we’re talking about AI, we’re talking about data, we’re talking about the servers.”
Additionally, the summit will address sustainability concerns related to AI, particularly the data servers that are typically housed in cooler climates of the Global North, like Iceland, Sweden, and Norway.
“So, what does that mean for the Global South countries whose temperatures are warm year-round,” she posed.
Coinciding with Creole Heritage Month in St Lucia, the event symbolically highlights the unique Caribbean languages and how they can be leveraged to enhance regional participation in the creative sector and trade.
The summit will be an intimate, highly interactive event, expecting no more than 150 attendees, with plans to host similar conferences annually in different Caribbean countries.
