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While the Global North debates AI ethics, young Africans are using it to tell stories rooted in their own cultures.
In the Global North, whether AI use can ever be considered ethical in creative spaces is becoming a gray area. But for many Africans, the conversation is shifting away from who owns what and more about access and opportunities for creative expression.
At the heart of it all is Kelele Comics, a project that is working with teenagers aged 13 to 17 to produce comic books with AI technology. Rather than replacing human artists or creating a new wave of money-making opportunities for AI, the focus is on giving young people a voice to express themselves for the first time ever.
Globally, generative AI has created a buzz of controversy. Many of these tools are trained on vast amounts of online data, including artwork, essays and designs created by people for people.
For critics, this is essentially the crux of their ethical argument against the use of AI. AI companies are profiting from human creative output, yet human creatives are not being recognized or rewarded for their work. This has led to legal actions, protests and demands for regulation.
A different reality in Africa
But when one considers this global debate, one realizes that, in many African countries, this is not necessarily an issue of human creatives being replaced by AI, but rather one of human creatives being denied access to creative tools and platforms.
For young creatives within Kelele Comics, AI is not replacing them. It is providing them with opportunities. Young people are using these tools to create images, come up with storylines, and bring their stories to life, all of which are centered on African cultures, languages, and experiences.
In fact, one realizes that, rather than being focused on replacing human creatives, AI is actually providing creatives with access, allowing them to be creative, even if they are not necessarily skilled creatives.
It is at this point that the ethics of the situation get more complicated. If the AI systems are created with an unethical base, does using them for grassroots creativity continue the problem or combat it?
It is possible to see the situation as continuing the problem. Others see it as being different. They point out that the difference between using AI systems for personal stories and education, versus using it to make large sums of money, could be significant.
In the case of Kelele Comics, it is not about using AI systems to make money or replace professional artists. Instead, it is about empowerment. The goal is to give young people the ability to see themselves represented in the stories that they tell. This is important in a region of the world where access to global creative industries has been unequal.
