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The Gates Foundation warns that billions of people could be left behind due to AI's lack of understanding of non-English languages and conditions prevalent in poorer countries. More than 90% of early large language models were trained on English data, leading to high error rates for other languages like Yoruba. The foundation’s annual report emphasizes the need for AI to serve people in poor nations, advocating for targeted investments to address healthcare, education, and agricultural needs. Bill Gates notes that decisions made over the next year and a half will determine whether AI primarily benefits those who already have advantages or reaches those with the least resources.
Written by the local model on 2026-09-15,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
Claims extracted
14
claim-shaped sentences
Uncertain
29%
4 of 14 hedged
Leaning
Leans left
of the writing, not the subject
Correction & hedging signals
59.2
corrections and hedging in what we collected;
not a measure of accuracy
Outlets on this story
1
Technology
Narrative spread
1
articles carrying this framing
Story summary
The Gates Foundation has issued a warning that billions of people could be left behind by artificial intelligence due to its lack of understanding of their languages and living conditions. The foundation’s annual report on global progress highlights that over 90% of data used to train early large language models originates from English-language sources, leading to high error rates for non-English languages such as Yoruba, which is spoken widely in Nigeria and west Africa, where errors occur more than ten times higher than in English. AI tools designed for commercial farmers in Iowa are likely to fail when applied to smallholder farmers in Ethiopia due to differences in crops, pests, markets, and constraints. The foundation commits at least $1 billion (£742 million) over the next two years towards making AI more accessible by funding healthcare, education, agriculture, and digital infrastructure projects that include local-language datasets.
Written for “AI Equity Concerns” on 2026-09-17,
grounded in this article and the 0 other(s) covering the same event.
Why this leaning score
The article's own words the score was based on. Each is quoted
verbatim and was checked against the article text before being
stored, so you can find it in the original.
Leaning score -0.50 for article 9988 (high confidence, 1 verified quote) · logged 2026-09-15
Billions of people risk being left behind by artificial intelligence because it does not understand their languages or the conditions they live in, the Gates Foundation has warned.
asserted
Foundation → risk → languages
The rapid rise in the use of AI risks widening the gap between rich and poor unless it is deliberately built to serve people in the world’s poorest countries, the Foundation’s annual report on global progress found.
asserted
report → risk → progress
More than 90 per cent of the data used to train early large language models came from English-language sources, with leading AI speech-recognition systems makeing errors less than 6 per cent of the time in English.
asserted
systems → use → English
In Yoruba, spoken widely in Nigeria and elsewhere in west Africa, the error rate is ten times higher.
asserted
rate → speak → Africa
AI tools also risk failing when they are transplanted from wealthy countries into poorer ones without local data, the foundation found.
asserted
foundation → risk → data
A system designed for a commercial farmer in Iowa, for example, may not understand the crops, pests, markets or constraints facing a smallholder in Ethiopia.
uncertain
system → design → Ethiopia
The Gates Foundation’s 2026 Goalkeepers Report, published Tuesday, also warned that, left to the market, the most capable AI tools are likely to be built first for the people and institutions able to pay for them, rather than those who could benefit from them most.
uncertain
who → publish → them
However, it also highlights how AI could also help close huge shortages of doctors, teachers and agricultural advisers in poorer countries, by putting specialist knowledge in the hands of frontline workers.
uncertain
AI → highlight → workers
The foundation is committing at least $1 billion (£742 million) over the next two years to efforts to make AI more accessible, with funding going to healthcare, education, agriculture and towards digital infrastructure, such as local-language datasets.
asserted
funding → commit → datasets
“AI could be a great equalizer – or widen the gap.
uncertain
AI → widen → gap
It’s a present-tense choice,” Bill Gates said in the report.
asserted
Gates → ’ → report
“The decisions being made in the next 12 to 18 months – about how AI is built, funded, and deployed – will determine whether this technology primarily benefits the people who already have the most or reaches those who have the least,” he added.
asserted
he → make → least
Early projects include an AI system that has improved diagnostic accuracy in Kenyan clinics, education tools showing large learning gains in Sierra Leone and the US, and an agricultural service now used by more than 740,000 farmers in India.
asserted
that → include → India
This article has been produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid project
asserted
article → produce → project
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