Developing country

And I'll be clear here.

I think the tech titans have a... an aggressive, voracious agenda to gobble up markets in LMICs.

So people are using their solutions and there's a race to the bottom.

And we need to anticipate that and ensure that community actors are playing a role in advocating for the appropriate use of AI, that governments are engaged in scaling the right regulations, that there is the right governance infrastructure in place, and that donors are...

But in concert with that, there is also a need for governments to play a coordinated role in thinking about how these tools are rolled out.

And that right now, as I said, there's sort of a race to the bottom, like the tech companies are coming in and trying to roll out their tools.

And so where I think there is value is trying to articulate what, you know, digital public goods or digital commons might look like insofar as a set of agreed upon principles and ways of evaluating AI that donors and other stakeholders all agree on to ensure that those worst practices aren't being applied in LMICs.

In an ideal world, that would be something that the big donors, high-income countries, would advocate for.

And what book are you currently reading at the moment?

Transformative Political Leadership, Making a Difference in the Developing World.

It's a book by Robert Rothberg.

And what is that one thing about you that surprises people when they meet you in person?

First of all, I wanna start with some important numbers on why the implementation sciences are extremely important right now in oncology.

So globally, we're expecting around forty-five million new cancer cases by twenty fifty, and nearly seventy percent of the cancer deaths will occur in LMICs.

So implementation of these novel therapies is no longer a secondary consideration.

It's, I think, quite central to improve cancer outcomes worldwide.

Okay, makes sense.

I think the answer is quite different for low income countries as opposed to middle income countries, which I think is underrated because we often bundle them into this acronym of LMICs and it just kind of gets reduced to one thing.

But, you know, a place like Malawi is in a very different position from a place like India or the Philippines, for example, and I think just needs to do different things.

In the case of, let's say, a country like Malawi, I think thinking about their current economic mix, agriculture and the types of crops that they produce, like maize and tobacco, I think are unlikely to be radically affected in demand by AI.

I mean, and it's the beginning, so it's not very structured, uh, but it's-- it-- I see it as, uh, um, as it is happening.

Um, and so obviously China is targeting, uh, developing countries, uh, because they're heavily dependent on Chinese investments, infrastructure projects.

And, uh, also, uh, Xi Jinping, uh, gave Africa a zero tariff umbrella, except for Eswatini, because it recognizes Taiwan.

So all these things are being used to influence Africa.

I mean, we're talking about civil rights such as voting or getting married, owning property, and making decisions about your all life.

And these are all things that can be lost through practices such as interdiction or substitute decision-making, which are particularly frequent in LMICs.

And added to that, as we point out in the paper, is the close relationship between psychosis and poverty.

And things like exclusion from housing, work, and education can just deepen poverty, and in turn worsen mental health services and disconnecting people from services.

Not just as participants in a consultation, but really as members of the team with a specialist knowledge.

In the same way that we would have a statistician or a health economist, they are experts, too.

And meaningful participation includes recognizing the role of families, peer networks, community organization, and any kind of local support systems that take place in the very diverse landscape of LMICs.

So ultimately, the, the paper's message is not only that we need more services, but that we need different kinds of systems and systems that promote supportive decision-making, community-based care, social inclusion, and overall leadership from people with lived experience themselves.