Artificial Intelligence, Power, and Global Inequality: The UK–Africa Development Divide

The paper examines the notion of artificial intelligence (AI) as a strategic resource that determines the current influences in the world's power relations, with examples of the development gap between the United Kingdom and African nations. It questions the reproduction or adaptation of historical patterns of inequality with the use of AI, its governance, and its deployment and evaluates the consequences of inequalities in technological capacity, regulatory structures, and institutional power on the outcomes of development. The analysis, through a comparative perspective, reveals how the UK has consolidated structural power through policy, research and innovations in comparison with the limited bargaining power, capacity and inability to resist dependency and data colonialism in Africa. The paper promotes a normative standpoint in support of fair AI regulation, capacity building, and inclusive co-production of technology and knowledge, suggesting avenues to decrease structural injustices of global AI ecosystems. Findings reveal that AI will continue to foster the current world's inequalities unless a strategic approach is taken to it, yet it can be used as an instrument towards sustainable and context-specific development.