We Need A Policy Agenda for Rural AI

Jasmine McNealy is a Senior Fellow in Tech Policy with the Mozilla Foundation, associate professor at the University of Florida, and a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Shutterstock Although there is no one universal definition of “rural,” in general, rural areas are those outside of population centers and their suburbs. In the US, these areas cover approximately 86 percent of US landmass. Although rural county populations have been in a state of consistent decline, they are home to nearly 60 million people, or a bit less than 1 in 5 US residents. That’s more people than lived in the top six US population centers in the 2020 Census.  Rural communities are each unique, but they share many of the same major areas of concern including economic development, connectivity, education, health, agriculture, and climate. Of course, some of these overlap with the major concerns for urban centers. Yet, it is how these issues manifest and shape the impacts of technologies like AI and automation, as well as how technosolutionists attempt to solve social issues with technology, that should be of significant concern.  In short, rural communities matter. And that means they should matter when it comes to the development of policies on artificial intelligence (AI).  COVID-19 Revealed the Depth of the Digital Divide  Before we can even begin to discuss AI policy, however, it’s important to understand the extent of the digital divide that still exists on basic connectivity. For example, four percent of rural US hospitals…We Need A Policy Agenda for Rural AI