World Bank Loans 700 million to Promote AI Education

The World Bank successfully passed a second bill on the issue of emerging AI in the society of the developing world. 

Today, Artificial Intelligence has taken over the world in a matter of months through multiple corners of the world. However, with the introduction of new technologies come the implications and consequences of it. With AI, new issues on appropriate usage have risen, causing extreme social tension. 

The severity of these issues has varied across developing countries. Because of the lack of infrastructure, many countries cannot support the education of new technologies, including Artificial Intelligence. Moreover, economically, AI plays a vastly different role in developing countries than in high-income countries. In these countries, AI will likely replace assembly line jobs given to the people. Therefore, many developing countries have attempted to avoid the domination of AI in their countries, which has resulted in the decline of their economy and widened the gap between developed and developing countries. 

Members of the World Bank have participated in the intense discussion of resolutions on the usage of AI. While partaking in a back-and-forth debate, representatives from Greece, Turkey, and the Dominican Republic joined together to form a bill for the facilitation of AI education. 

The Education in Technology Act overwhelmingly passed, with a majority favoring the resolution. The bill hopes to educate people from low-income countries on AI, allowing them to use the new technology appropriately in their daily lives. Moreover, the bill plans to loan 700 million dollars in total to create and strengthen programs to teach the use of AI, train technical skills in retirement homes and for the elderly, and fund teachers in AI and technical literacy. 

An author of the act, the representative of Greece, spoke on the beneficiary of the act, explaining, "Education is the way to the future." While countering a point made by Brazil, the representative of Greece explained, "[the elderly] deserve just as much fun as everyone else; they put in their time, so why would they be left behind?" She strongly believes that by educating about AI, people can utilize AI helping them in their lives.

However, the act faced some opposition among some members of the World Bank. A few members of the committee were concerned about loaning money for the education of the elderly, claiming that the education of AI would not be advantageous for them. Therefore, an amendment was proposed by Brazil to strike Section 3. In an interview, Brazil stated that "the section was totally frivolous and superfluous and useless." He firmly believed that because senior citizens reside in retirement homes, the knowledge of AI would be of no use to them. In spite of his persistence, the amendment did not pass.

This article was written by Rosalyn Zhou.