The Gates Foundation’s new AI initiative: attempting to leapfrog global health inequalities?
By Jonathan Shaffer, Arsenii Alenichev, and Marlyn C. Faure,
BMJ Global Health
| 11. 03. 2023
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has long been criticised for championing the trend of socially reductive, ‘magic bullet’ technical ‘solutions’ to the complex, historically shaped, politically conflicted problems at root of global health inequities.1–5 Their August 9th announcement of the launch of a new US$5 million, 48 project funding push6 to launch new ‘artificial intelligence (AI) large language models (LLM) in low-income and middle-income countries to improve the livelihood and well-being of communities globally’ is set to continue this hegemonic global health trend. And, as much as ‘magic bullets’ can solve issues, they, as bullets, are also capable of wounding and causing harm.
There are at least three reasons to believe that the unfettered imposition of these tools into already fragile and fragmented healthcare delivery systems risks doing far more harm than good.
We are not Luddites. New tools of technology, biomedicine, scientific knowledge and population care have often made life better and safer for those with access and control over their use.7 LLMs and AI, however, will not be so equity-advancing despite the Gates Foundation’s overheated...
Related Articles
By Mary Annette Pember, ICT News [cites CGS' Katie Hasson] | 04.18.2025
The sight of a room full of human cadavers can be off-putting for some, but not for Haley Omeasoo.
In fact, Omeasoo’s comfort level and lack of squeamishness convinced her to pursue studies in forensics and how DNA can be...
Gray wolf by Jessica Eirich via Unsplash
“I’m not a scarcity guy, I’m an abundance guy”
– Colossal co-founder and CEO Ben Lamm, The New Yorker, 4/14/25
Even the most casual consumers of news will have seen the run of recent headlines featuring the company Colossal Biosciences. On March 4, they announced with great fanfare the world’s first-ever woolly mice, as a first step toward creating a woolly mammoth. Then they topped that on April 7 by unveiling one...
By Katrina Northrop, The Washington Post | 04.06.2025
photo via Wikimedia Commons licensed under CC by 3.0
China's most infamous scientist is attempting a comeback. He Jiankui, who went to jail for three years after claiming he had created the world's first genetically altered babies, says he remains...
By Anumita Kaur [cites CGS’ Katie Hasson], The Washington Post | 03.25.2025
Genetic information company 23andMe has said that it is headed to bankruptcy court, raising questions for what happens to the DNA shared by millions of people with the company via saliva test kits.
Sunday’s announcement clears the way for a new...