BRICS forum seeks equitable sharing of AI benefits, Pg9

Key Highlights:

• The BRICS Media and Think Tank Forum urged equitable AI benefit-sharing among nations, especially for the Global South.
• Forum called for joint R&D, co-developed standards, and open-source AI tools.
• Warned against AI capability concentration among a few actors in limited countries.
• Emphasised need for regulatory autonomy and sovereignty in AI governance.
• Stressed the creation of multilingual and multimodal AI corpora to support journalism and think tank research.
• Official launch of Global South Joint Communication Partnership Program by Xinhua to strengthen cooperation.
• BRICS presented as a channel for unity, equity, and self-reliance of Global South nations in the evolving tech order.

Detailed Insights:

• The forum noted that technological hierarchies rooted in the history of modern tech (like telecom and the internet) risk being reproduced in AI.
• Participants advocated for a multilateral AI governance framework where Global South voices are represented, rather than depending on dominant countries or corporations.
• Open-source AI development was proposed as a strategy to democratise access and innovation.
• Development of a multilingual corpus is essential to train region-specific large language models that reflect diverse civilisational narratives.
• The emphasis on storytelling from the Global South counters existing media hegemonies, offering more balanced global discourse.
• U.S. threats of punitive tariffs against BRICS aspirants were criticised as unilateralism, calling for stronger intra-BRICS cooperation in global governance.
• The initiative reflects BRICS’ strategic shift from purely economic cooperation to a techno-political coalition focused on AI equity, media pluralism, and policy sovereignty.

Scientific/Technical Concepts Involved:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI): Simulation of human intelligence in machines; increasingly used in journalism, governance, R&D.
• Multilingual & Multimodal Corpus: A dataset consisting of texts/images/audio in multiple languages and formats to train AI models.
• AI Governance: Frameworks for ethical, regulatory, and technical oversight of AI systems to ensure fairness, safety, and accountability.
• Open Source AI: AI tools and models made publicly accessible for use, modification, and improvement without proprietary restrictions.