Letters | How AI can be more than a money spinner
- Readers discuss how the tranformative power of artificial intelligence can be tapped, and the menace of spam calls in Hong Kong
The Schwab Foundation’s “AI for Social Innovation” initiative, co-initiated by Microsoft and supported by the EY organisation, recently built on the experiences of 300 social innovators to show how they are using AI to address healthcare issues, offer environmental solutions and generate economic opportunities for marginalised communities.
In Brazil, for example, black and indigenous women are at much greater risk of dying from cervical cancer. While AI offers opportunities for increasing access to diagnostics, data is skewed towards white patients. That’s why the social enterprise SAS Brasil is now developing datasets that can tackle data bias and enable diagnostics for black and indigenous women.
Social entrepreneurs are uniquely positioned to drive a mass movement for ethical and responsible AI, but too many of them currently lack access. Only half of all social entrepreneurs have the technical skills to leverage AI. And while 50 per cent of all social enterprises are led by women, only 25 per cent of those implementing AI have a female founder.
Social entrepreneurs need support to integrate AI into their business models, so they can rapidly scale positive impacts – including access to medical treatment, educational outcomes or local environmental issues.