AI Risks Widening Global North-South Inequality: Experts

UN chief Guterres speaks on AI and multilateralism at BRICS summit.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly developing and leaving its mark across the globe. Yet, the implementation of AI risks widening the gap between the Global North and South.

It is projected that the AI market’s global revenue will increase by 19.6 percent each year. By 2030, AI could contribute USD 15.7 trillion to the global economy. However, the increases to nations’ GDP will be unequally distributed, with North America and China experiencing the most gains, while the Global South gains far less.

Due to smaller capacities to fund research, development, and implementation, fewer countries in the Global South are adopting AI technology. Access to affordable AI computing to train AI models is one of the field’s greatest barriers to entry in the Global South, according to the 2024 UN report, “Governing AI for Humanity.”

Further, AI is designed to create profitable market extraction that does not benefit the global majority, according to Vilas Dhar, President and Trustee of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation. As countries in the Global North are AI’s primary investors, it is being developed to address their needs.

“The result is a quiet erosion of political and economic autonomy,” he said. “Without deliberate intervention, AI risks becoming a mechanism for reinforcing historical patterns of exploitation through technical means. It also risks losing the incredible value of diverse, globally minded inputs into designing our collective AI future.”

Across the world, people risk losing their jobs to AI, but many countries in the Global South are reliant on labour-intensive industries, and AI poses a greater threat of increasing unemployment and poverty. Particularly, children, women, youths, people with disabilities, older workers, creatives, and people with jobs susceptible to automation are at risk.

According to Daron Acemoglu, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, labour-replacing AI poses a greater threat to workers in the developing world, as capital-intensive technology may not be useful in these nations, where capital is often scarce and labour is abundant and cheap. Technology that prioritises labour-intensive production is better suited to their comparative advantage.

“Because advanced economies have no reason to invest in such labour-intensive technologies, the trajectory of technological change will increasingly disfavor poor countries,” he said.

If these trends continue, these nations will experience increased unemployment and fall further behind in deploying capital-intensive AI due to limited financial resources and digital skill sets. More AI policies and guidelines, as well as education on data privacy and algorithmic bias, could help reduce this inequality.

Evidently, AI threatens to widen the gap between the Global North and South, as AI capacities are consolidated within a small group of institutions and regions. In Dhar’s view, AI will need to be designed to serve people and solve problems rather than focus solely on profit maximisation.

“If left unaddressed, this imbalance will cement a way of thinking about the world that mirrors the development of the Internet or social media – a process we do not want to replicate,” Dhar said.

But the development of AI also presents opportunities for the Global South.

AI could help design context-specific systems for local areas in the Global South that are not just based on the Global North, according to Dhar. “It can unlock new models of inclusion and resilience,” he said.

For example, AI could aid farmers in decision-making by informing them of weather and drought predictions using geospatial intelligence, as well as marketing price information. AI could also help train farmers and other producers. It can also be used to improve education and healthcare in nations where these are major issues harming their populations and stunting development.

Acemoglu said that AI should be developed to complement rather than replace human labour for these benefits to become possible. “That will require forward-looking leadership on the part of policymakers,” he said.

AI is also starting to make an appearance in conflict. In Ukraine, autonomous drones are being used, which are capable of tracking and engaging enemies, as well as BAD.2 model robot dogs, which are ground drones that can survey areas for enemies. Autonomous machine guns are also used, in which AI helps spot and target enemies.

The use of AI in conflict poses an ethical dilemma. AI could protect human lives on one side of the conflict but pose a great threat to lives on the other side of the battlefield. This also raises the question of whether AI should be given the power to engage in harm.

But perhaps the use of AI can reduce the number of people engaging in conflicts harming developing countries and move these people to other sectors where they can realise more potential and aid their country’s economic development.

Clear international frameworks must be established to prevent a rise in inequality and a greater gap between the Global North and South.

For the first time ever, AI was a major topic of discussion at the 17th BRICS summit, which serves as a coordination forum for nations from the Global South, in Rio de Janeiro. BRICS member countries signed the Leaders’ Declaration on Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence, which presents guidelines to ensure AI is developed and used responsibly to advance sustainability and inclusive growth.

The declaration called on members of the UN to promote the inclusion of emerging markets and developing countries (EMDCs) and the Global South in decision-making regarding AI.

“New technologies must operate under a governance model that is fair, inclusive, and equitable. The development of AI must not become a privilege for a handful of countries, nor a tool of manipulation in the hands of millionaires,” Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said at the summit.

However, the UN report “Governing AI for Humanity” found that 118 countries, most of which are in the Global South, were not part of a sample of non-UN AI governance initiatives, while seven countries, all of which are in the Global North, were included in all initiatives.

According to Dhar, global governance must create a more equitable distribution of power that entails sharing ownership and embedding the Global South at every level of institutions, agreements, and investments, rather than simply for consultation. These nations must also be aided in building capacity, sharing in rastructure, scientific discovery, and participating in creating global frameworks, he said.

In his remarks at the BRICS summit, UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed his concern over the weaponisation of AI and stressed the importance of AI governance that is focused on equity. He said that in order for this to be done, the current “multipolar world” must be addressed.

“We cannot govern AI effectively—and fairly—without confronting deeper, structural imbalances in our global system,” Guterres said.

Dhar emphasised that the inclusion of every person in the conversation on AI is crucial to creating legitimate global technological governance.

“The future of AI is being negotiated with immediacy and urgency,” Dhar said. “Whether it becomes a force for collective progress or a new vector for inequality depends on who is empowered to shape it.”