As United Nations General Assembly High-level Week began in New York, UNU Rector Tshilidzi Marwala joined CGTN America's "The Heat" for an interview covering the work of the United Nations University, education in the age of AI, and how and why we need to bridge the growing digital divide, particularly to support countries in the Global South.
"Literacy was traditionally seen as the ability to read and write. But we live at a different time where technology is absolutely everywhere. So, the concept of technological literacy has become a human rights issue.
"[UNU institutes] work very closely with countries of the Global South to bridge the [digital] divide, to ensure that — through policies, through partnerships — we are able to bring digital infrastructure to people in the Global South so they can elevate their educational experience to the digital age and be digitally literate.
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"If AI is to be a game changer it needs to be localized. We need to incorporate local data sets so AI is able to understand local particularities when it comes to education ... And AI is not cheap. Access to some of the [AI] models that are quite important for education is not cheap. How do we bring down the cost of AI?"
