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Is access to AI the real divide?
We tend to measure the AI divide in connections and licences. Leaders in the Global South tell a more complicated story.
The global conversation about AI inequality is usually a conversation about access: connectivity, computing power, subscriptions. I wanted to know whether that is how leaders in the Global South experience it.
I am interested in the capabilities that sit behind access: language, data that reflect local reality, institutional support, time and the skills to check what a model produces. What does it cost to verify an answer when the model knows little about your context? And what happens to that cost when AI stops answering questions and starts taking actions?
These questions matter because the next wave of AI will not wait for the gap to close.