How do we shape AI to serve humanity—especially African food systems?
The African Centre for Cities’ AfriFOODlinks team convened a panel discussion at Food Indaba 2025 on AI, Knowledge and African Food Systems. The session explored AI’s dual nature: unlocking opportunity while potentially reinforcing inequity or erasing marginalised knowledge. It brought together African practitioners, scholars, and policy specialists to provide inputs on the merits, risks, and ethical imperatives that need to be prioritised within African deliberations on the regulation of Artificial Intelligence, which is being rapidly and eagerly adopted by agro-industries and other food system role players in Africa.
Core Questions:
- How do we ask the right questions to guide AI development?
- What does AI transition mean for African food systems?
- How can AI amplify Black and African knowledge rather than silence it?
Key Topics:
- AI as knowledge system: accessibility vs. bias
- Cultural presence in AI models—where are African narratives?
- Developing toolkits to assess AI truthfulness and detect bias
- Balancing deep narrative knowledge with AI-synthesised versions
- Ethics of ownership, attribution, and acknowledgment in AI
