The World Bank on Tuesday called on developing countries to embrace artificial intelligence technology tools to deliver better governance outcomes, warning that they risked being left behind if they failed to do so.
“AI has thrown developing economies a lifeline, and they should seize it,” Indermit Gill, chief economist of the World Bank Group, said as the organization launched its annual World Development Report.
“They do not need large models or big data centers to reap its benefits,” he added, advocating for the adaptation of lower-cost AI tools to local conditions to deliver results in the health, education, justice and agricultural sectors.
Advanced AI models — largely developed in the United States and China — offer the ability to quickly analyze data and automate many tasks that otherwise take skilled humans longer to do.
These AI models, however, require huge data centers and large amounts of complex computing power, using massive amounts of electricity and water — with implications for climate change.
“Developing economies today are in the midst of their weakest average growth performance in three decades,” said a World Bank statement accompanying the report.
“AI could significantly boost that performance before the end of the 2020s while delivering tangible benefits to people.”
The report calls for countries to use AI to “help extend otherwise costly medical, legal, educational, and agricultural services to underserved billions — doing in a decade what might otherwise take a century.”