Digital Divide And Then Here Comes AI: Innovation vs. The Poor

Emphasizing the need to eradicate the digital divide and improve digital literacyPhoto byAlicia Marie Phidd

Today, February 3, 2023, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the employment data and it is historic. Unemployment is at 3.4% and the country has not seen that since 1969. The nonfarm payroll added a staggering 517,000 jobs in January, 2023. This has sent economists in a tailspin. It appears that their predictive models aren’t doing much accurate predicting. Federal Chair Jerome Powell stated that inflation was transitory and I wonder if they have a model to predict the rate of this transition because it is not seen by the naked eye of the consumer nor do we feel it in our pocket books.

I have called this period from the shutdown of March 2020 through to present day, The Great Reset. Everything has changed. It appears tradition as we know it, is out the door. Unfortunately it did not take the coronavirus with it. We now go to court by zoom meetings, talk to colleagues more often through a chatbox than a phone call and if your restaurant does not have a delivery service through an app, might as well it closes its doors now. Not to mention the strong labor market which gives the false sense of ‘all is well”, but is it? There is a meme on instagram of a middle class couple selling eggs as if it was an illegal substance. While the skit was extremely funny, it highlighted the true state of affairs of the economy. If the middle class is preoccupied with the price of eggs, what head space will the poor have to be concerned with paying for AI subscriptions?

The digital divide is real and artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT being mainstream has highlighted that there will be further disparity with regard to digital literacy. There are several types of digital divide but the ones that immediately come to mind are the “access” and “use gap”. ChatGPT a product of OpenAI.com, introduced a paid subscription option this week. There will always be a free version, they vowed but that will not prevent further marginalization of our poverty stricken citizens in education. This widespread use of AI such as ChatGPT demonstrates that while some are quick to want to limit the use of this tool, we should equally be quick to train “everyone” on how to use it and get maximum results. What you put in Chat GPT determines the information you receive. Therefore if you have no knowledge that you can ask it to respond in a famous person’s persona or that you can request it to be detailed in creating an agenda for a meeting, your output will simply not measure up to one who knows.

The economy we are experiencing now dictates we focus and prioritize budgeting. However, while we are excited about this AI innovation reaching the general public, we cannot ignore the digital literacy impact both positively and negatively. We are still trying to figure out how to bridge the gap with “internet usage” and then here comes AI’s latest most boastful product, ChatGPT. We can only hope that the United Nations , Facebook, Starlink and all the powers that be, will continue their fight to ensure equal access to all in the digital technology learning sphere.

In a professional bout, traditionally it is one fighter against another and for each pugilist it is an exhausting experience and they can see the blows coming. Those that live in poverty are fighting several opponents simultaneously, many of which they cannot see. Many of which they are unaware they exist. The digital divide persists.