No Ethiopian, Pakistani, Indian, Brazilian or other serious policy maker believes that artificial intelligence will solve corruption or improve governance overnight. National policies such as Digital Ethiopia 2030, Pakistan’s National AI Policy 2025 or other initiatives in Chile, Argentina and Colombia consider AI as a way to enhance service delivery in health, education, agriculture, taxation and disaster management, rather than as an institutional reform.
This is a practical application. Precision agriculture, an AI-based technology, is used in agriculture-based economies to increase scarce resources, increase productivity and improve climate resilience, directly impacting the food security of billions of people. In medicine, the use of AI increases diagnosis and vaccination in underserved communities with limited doctors. Adaptive learning platforms are used in education to close gaps in literacy and skills. These applications are about dealing with the limits of growth, not forging solutions for politics.
Ancient analogies are instructive. Mobile phones and digital payments did not reform governance in Kenya or India, but M-Money changed the face of financial inclusion and Common Payment Interface (UPI) accelerated economic formalization. AI is the next level of leap. With the current public digital infrastructure as a foundation, it offers better and more scalable services. To rule this as magical thinking it ignores how technology has enabled rapid growth in more and more progressive contexts.
Critics point to the West’s focus on protectionism, prejudice, ecological cost and activism such as the QuitGPT movement. This applies to wealthy societies with well-developed infrastructure, high digital literacy and well-established institutions. But for much of the Global South, stagnation, youth unemployment, low productivity and lack of access to services are immediate threats, not over-implemented.
The negative view of AI usually comes from a place of privilege where basic needs are met – disappointment is for those who can afford to be disappointed. Young, developing countries cannot afford to miss the technological wave if they do not want to fall further behind. AI has the potential to contribute trillions of dollars to the global economy in the next few years and the Global South could reap significant benefits (albeit initially on a small scale) through productivity in areas such as retail, finance and healthcare.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says the benefits of AI may be greatest in the Global South where it can be used to address problems that are hindering the growth of access. The main concern, that the nations of the Global South will become passive consumers in the absence of local ecosystems, is worth noting, but there are signs that urgent action is being taken.
