Could AI transform life in developing countries?

TWENTY-FIVE years ago your correspondent hired a cellphone in Congo. Each day, it cost what a typical local made in several months. The handset was as heavy as a half-brick and only somewhat more useful. Practically no one else in Congo had one, bar cabinet ministers and tycoons, so there were not many people to call. In those days, mobile phones had made no detectable difference to most people’s lives in the world’s poorest countries.

Today, many farmers in Congo have phones: the number of connections has grown 5,000-fold as the population has doubled. Mobile devices have transformed lives throughout the developing world, especially as more and more of them are hooked up to the internet (see chart 1). The 4bn people who live in low or lower-middle income countries have vastly more access to information, chat daily to far-off friends and use their phones like bank cards even when they don’t have bank accounts.