On September 16, 2024, the highly anticipated "Artificial Intelligence from the Global Majority" roundtable will be held during the InnoBlock 2024 Summit at the Singapore Expo. This forum will bring a new, urgent focus on AI governance for the global majority, a theme advocated by the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and the Data and AI Governance (DAIG) Alliance.

Hosted by ABGA, with LingoAI and the World Web3 Alliance (W3A) as AI guiding organisations and supported by the International Institute of Artificial Intelligence (AIII), this roundtable marks the most prominent side event of Token2049, Singapore's leading blockchain event.

For too long, the development of artificial intelligence (AI) has been dominated by voices and systems from the Global North. As a result, the governance, applications, and societal impacts of AI have often been shaped by the assumptions and priorities of these regions. This forum seeks to challenge that status by emphasizing the perspectives of the Global Majority.

In his 2018 book, “AI Superpowers,” Kai-Fu Lee predicted a digital Cold War between the U.S. and China, where these superpowers would monopolize AI development due to their vast resources, venture capital, and access to massive datasets. His prophecy highlighted the growing threat of AI dominance by a few and the consequences for other nations, which risk being relegated to digital subservience. This concentration of power has alarming consequences: the potential for AI to manipulate and marginalize entire populations, with data control resting in the hands of a few global giants. As AI becomes increasingly central to economic and political systems, it exacerbates inequality and reinforces geopolitical divides.

Can Web3.0 and Decentralized AI Be the Answer?

The roundtable will explore how decentralized AI, coupled with Web3.0 technologies, can offer a path to a more equitable future. Instead of relying on centralized, monopolized systems, can the Global South chart a new course by embracing decentralized solutions?

Singapore: A Rising Power in AI and Web3.0.

Singapore ranks third in the Global AI Index, surpassing expectations with its innovations in AI and Web3.0. Singapore has strategically positioned itself as a key player in Southeast Asia, a region home to over 680 million people speaking more than 1,200 languages.

To bridge the linguistic gap, AI Singapore (AISG) has launched SEA-LION, the region’s first large language model, tailored specifically for Southeast Asian languages like Indonesian, Thai, Tamil, and Burmese. SEA-LION is more than just a translation tool—it's a cultural bridge between communities.

Darius Liu, SEA-LION’s team leader, emphasizes that larger models aren't always better. The region cannot depend on the goodwill of Western tech firms. The question is: What happens when these companies cut access? SEA-LION seeks to ensure Southeast Asian languages are not left behind.

LingoAI’s Groundbreaking Solution: LingoPod

LingoAI, a Singapore-based AI company founded by CEO Una Wang, is addressing a critical gap in AI development—the lack of linguistic data for most of the world’s 7,000 languages, which are predominantly classified as low- or medium-resource languages. This shortage severely limits the performance of large language models (LLMs) in reasoning and translation for these languages. Currently, most high-quality voice recognition systems support only around 100 languages, which poses a significant barrier to AI adoption in the Global South. To tackle this challenge, LingoAI has introduced LingoPod, the world’s first Web3.0 AI agent, as part of its DePIN x AI devices initiative. LingoPod is not just a real-time multilingual translation tool; it’s an advanced AI agent that facilitates voice-based human-computer interaction. More importantly, it builds a decentralized linguistic infrastructure powered by edge computing and federated learning. Through LingoPod, users can contribute voice data and be rewarded with Lingo tokens, making data collection more efficient and bypassing intermediaries. This decentralized model also ensures higher-quality linguistic data, which can mitigate the toxicity and biases often seen in LLMs.

As Singapore forges ahead, it seeks to strike a balance between the U.S.’s market-driven approach, the EU’s strict privacy regulations, and China’s focus on social stability. The question remains: Could Web3.0 provide a higher-dimensional protocol for AI governance?

Henry Wang, the founder of SmartMesh and W3A, has introduced the "Unified Theory of Web3.0" to address critical challenges in AI governance. He emphasized that the essence of Web3.0 is rooted in decentralization, data sovereignty, and privacy protection. The vision is to decouple data from applications, returning data ownership to users. Using blockchain technology, individuals can monetize their data through decentralized digital identities. By merging data sovereignty with edge LLMs, Wang's theory solves pressing privacy concerns while establishing a global distributed data marketplace. This approach tackles two major obstacles in AI development: the depletion of public data and the immobilization of private data. The goal is to create a more sustainable and equitable framework for AI, where users can benefit from the value of their data, and AI innovation can continue without exacerbating existing inequalities.

Why You Shouldn’t Miss This Forum

Given Singapore's innovative practices in both AI and Web 3.0, the World Web3.0 Alliance and LingoAI as the AI guiding organisation for the InnoBlock2024 conference have taken the initiative to set up United Nations Singapore IGF.with a bold vision of how these technologies can shape a fairer world for the Global Majority. This forum is focused on an emerging and urgent theme advocated by the Data and Artificial Intelligence Governance (DAIG) Alliance of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (UN IGF): AI from Global Majority.

Be part of the conversation that will redefine AI’s role in our world. Reserve your spot today at InnoBlock 2024!

We are honored to invite the following distinguished guests to share their views:

Dr. Eric Tan - Executive AI Scientist & Assistant Director, Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) of Singapore

Brandon Ong - AI Developer and Co-Lead of the Sea-Lion LLM, AI Singapore

Henry Wang- Founder and CEO of SmartMesh and W3A, advisor to LingoAI and MetaLife

Dr. Jun Zhao- Co-Principal Investigator, Digital Trust Center (DTC) and AI Security Institute, Assistant Professor, Nanyang Technological University

The forum will be moderated by Dr. James Ong - Founder and Managing Director, International Institute of Artificial Intelligence (AIII), and Adjunct Professor, Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD).

Roundtable Time: 16 September 10:50am-11:30am

Address: Singapore Expo Hall 3

Event Registration Link: https://lu.ma/srlcywnc