Latest news with #TechnologyandInnovationReport2025
Zawya
16-04-2025
- Business
- Zawya
Kenyans, Ugandans gaining little from AI jobs despite high training
Despite being globally renowned suppliers of business process outsourcing (BPO) talent, Kenyans and Ugandans tapped to work in the AI industry often get low-skill and low-paying jobs, even though they are highly trained and skilled, discouraging the growth of talent in the sector. ChatGPT – one of the world's most famous artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots – was trained mostly by Kenyans, and new research now shows may also have contributed to 'deskilling' the youth due to a mismatch of qualifications. UN Trade and Development (Unctad) Technology and Innovation Report 2025 highlights the stark reality of AI workers in countries such as Kenya, Uganda and India, which are global leaders in BPO work. A recent survey on micro task platforms and BPO companies showed that in Kenya and India specifically, 'highly educated workers, with graduate degrees or specialised educations in science, technology, engineering or mathematics, were often relegated to relatively low-skill tasks such as text and image annotation and content moderation.' 'Such significant wastes of human capital may be exacerbated in increasingly connected job markets, in which tasks are outsourced globally,' Unctad warns in the biennial technology report.'Data annotators in developing countries often experience difficult conditions, including up to 10 hours of work per day at wages of less than $2 per hour, engaged in repetitive tasks, and with limited opportunities for career advancement, for example, in Kenya and Uganda.'Essentially, such jobs are eroding Kenya's rich tech talent, and edging out its competitive advantage in the increasingly growing global tech industry, further widening the technology gap and consequently the income inequality gap. Read: IMF: AI could worsen income inequalityDespite being highly trained and skilled in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, Kenyans struggle to find meaningful employment locally and internationally, forcing them to settle for the low-skill AI jobs offered by BPO companies. Over the years, Kenya has developed more tech talent and is now one of the countries with the fastest growth in developers in Africa and globally. Between 2022 and 2023, Kenya recorded the second fastest growth in the number of developers listed on coders platform Github at 41 percent, second only to Nigeria's 45 percent. Last year, Kenya posted the fastest growth in Github developers at 33 percent, pushing the total number of programmers in the country to over 393,000, the fifth highest in Africa after Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, and Morocco. Also read: Jobs that will survive AI, and those that won'tThe country is also one of the top four tech start-up giants on the continent, a testament to leading in tech talent and innovation, but this has also been changing over time, with such start-ups starved of cash from investors forcing many of them to scale back operations or fold completely. Data from the African Venture Capital Association shows that last year, total funding raised by Kenyan start-ups declined by 33 percent to $318 million from $473 million in 2023. As a result, at least five start-ups closed down after failing to raise follow-up funding, leaving hundreds of talented Kenyans jobless amid tightening economic conditions and falling income. This came hot on the heels of similar scale-backs and shutdowns in 2023, which also left many in the country without jobs. To protect workers in the tech industry, Unctad proposes key policy changes that need urgent action by State organs.'Translating technological progress into shared prosperity requires labour-friendly policies in three stages: investments in education and skills, in pre-production; labour protection and worker empowerment, in production; and progressive taxation, in post-production,' the UN agency said in the report. © Copyright 2022 Nation Media Group. All Rights Reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
Forbes
14-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
UN Input On AI: Winners, Losers, And Opportunities
The United Nations logo is seen inside the United Nations headquarters in New York City on September ... More 20, 2022. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP) (Photo by LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images) The United Nations office of Trade and Development put out a report this year on artificial intelligence, and as you can imagine, it's quite lengthy. 'History has shown that while technological progress drives economic growth, it does not on its own ensure equitable income distribution or promote inclusive human development,' writes Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General of UNCTAD, in the preamble. Thinking that I was in for a dense read, I decided to ask ChatGPT 4 to summarize the report for me. The model, in its quick response, noted that the report 'examines the socioeconomic implications of artificial intelligence and offers policy recommendations to ensure equitable technological progress, especially for developing countries.' The model provided estimates on the size of global leadership in AI funding, with the United States at $67 billion in private AI investment in 2023, China with $7.8 billion, and India with $1.4 billion. It estimated AI will affect up to 40% of jobs globally, and that it will be concentrated in a specific cluster of companies, with around 100 companies driving 40% of global R&D. It mentioned around 118 countries being mostly left out of the discussion on AI, suggesting more collaboration is needed. ChatGPT also noted that the report provided recommendations for investment in infrastructure, data and skills, and suggested there should be a 'shared AI resource facility' and a 'public disclosure framework' developed in order to work on these goals. 'The Technology and Innovation Report 2025 underscores the transformative potential of AI and emphasizes the necessity for inclusive policies and international cooperation to ensure that AI benefits are equitably distributed across all nations,' ChatGPT wrote. Clicking into the report on my own, I was surprised to find that it's presented in a very visual way, with a scrolling presentation that makes these modules digestible to the human reader. First, the report represents billions of dollars in AI funding in dots, and shows visually how the field exploded in the last 10 years. For example, the data showed AI represented 7% of spending in 2023, and that by 2033, it will be more like 29%. The report cited auxiliary categories of investment, including the Internet of things, electric vehicles, and solar. In another segment, the report broke down how AI will automate things like coding and data science, saying about one third of jobs in developed economies are at risk. Scattershot graphs show the relative positioning of countries with a Frontier Technologies Readiness Index that shows developed countries are more prepared in general. The report, however, specifies how Brazil China India and the Philippines are outliers in more significant AI development. Advanced economies, in general, have a larger pool of workers, and often more developed national strategies. The report highlights these differences in promoting the idea of better distributed gains from technology. In addition, there are tips on designing policies for AI, evaluation of the G7 countries and their initiatives, and notes on global collaboration. Both ChatGPT's analysis and my own reading saw a lot of focus on India, where the model's input estimated a talent pool of around 13 million developers. The global collaboration component was also highly visible in both formats. Part of my takeaway here is that you can use ChatGPT to summarize long and complex documents. But this report from the UN was surprisingly visual and engaging. Take a look for yourself, and think about what's next.
