Artificial intelligence rests on three scarce resources, computing power, data and energy, today concentrated in few hands. As a candidate for UN Secretary-General, President Macky Sall places access to these means among his priorities.
Computing power. The most advanced chips come from a handful of firms, in a few countries. Training a large model demands computing power and sums beyond the reach of most states. A country can therefore write rules for artificial intelligence without having the means to build it.
Unequally held data. A model is worth what the data that trained it is worth, and the few actors who hold the most shape the tools. The rest of the world supplies part of the material without deciding its use or drawing profit from it, then rents tools trained on its own data.
Energy, the third resource. Data centres consume vast amounts of electricity and water. Presented as weightless, artificial intelligence therefore bears on power grids, and its race is also a race for energy, in which the countries that lack it fall one step further behind.
Access to the means within global governance. Without building data centres himself, the Secretary-General can bring access to these three resources into the global governance of artificial intelligence. He can also support shared computing capacity and shared data, so that the majority of countries are not left as customers of other people's models.
Experience in government. These proposals on the means of AI rest on twelve years as head of state and on the chairmanship of the African Union in 2022. That experience explains why the vision statement filed with the United Nations frames its proposals as obligations, among them a renewed multilateralism.
Africa at its heart, the world in its sights.
The Global Digital Compact and the report "Governing AI for Humanity" are public. Read all public positions at www.mackysall.net