Nigeria, March 31 -- I joined a panel last weekend at the London School of Economics and Political Science for the 12th LSE Africa Summit. The session was titled "Who Writes the Algorithm: AI, Africa and the Politics of Repair." It was a good title, and the conversation in the room was thoughtful. But I left with the sense that we are still not stating the harder implications of this conversation as clearly as we should. Let me try to do that here with this article, including the parts that are uncomfortable for us.

The Question Beneath the Question

Who writes the algorithm is important for us to ask as Africans, but it is also incomplete. A more useful question, in my view, is whose knowledge the system is built on in the first place. ...