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For more than six decades, the Peace Corps has represented itself as an agency focused on helping underserved communities around the globe. But a new initiative, called the “Tech Corps,” threatens to unravel the agency’s original mission by recruiting de facto Silicon Valley salespeople to promote the biggest names in AI — many of which have ties to President Donald Trump.
Established by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, the Peace Corps recruited skilled Americans interested in assisting developing countries in industries like education, healthcare, and agriculture. As noted by the Brookings Institution, the agency was created to “win the hearts and minds” of countries not aligned with the US during the Cold War. Now, the version of diplomacy it will be pushing is the vision of America-made AI tools in a bid to “enhance opportunity and prosperity” in developing countries.
As noted on the Tech Corps website, the program will recruit volunteers to “support last-mile adoption of American AI.” Qualifications are broad; the Tech Corps says volunteers must have an associate’s or bachelor’s degree in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, or relevant work experience.
It will place volunteers based on requests from countries in the American AI Exports Program, which is supposed to help foreign businesses “partner with or buy American AI.” One Tech Corps assignment example describes volunteers helping to integrate an AI-powered healthcare system into a local hospital, train staff, and develop privacy protocols. Another describes volunteers working with a country’s ministry of education to “identify gaps in student, teacher, and parent services where AI education tools could be most impactful.”
Kelsey Quinn, a project lead and analyst of tech sovereignty and security at the New Lines Institute, tells The Verge that while “it’s not entirely unusual for the Peace Corps to wade into the field of technology,” it’s the “commercial structure” of the Tech Corps that’s different. “This program deploys volunteers to support specific adoption of American AI products that countries have purchased, not just generally increase digital literacy as a skill,” Quinn says.
Some of the Peace Corps’ previous tech initiatives have involved teaching STEM skills to girls in Zambia, Thailand, and Albania, as well as offering communication technology training in Vanuatu. But the Tech Corps ties its aid directly to the American AI systems procured by developing countries, as the program’s launch date hinges on the first sales made through the American AI Exports Program, according to its website.
At the same time, Trump has dramatically altered the US government’s system for providing assistance abroad. Last year, the Department of Government Efficiency dismantled the US Agency for International Development, a move that has already led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people from infectious diseases and malnutrition, according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. A report from The Atlantic reveals that the Trump administration has plans to cut off funding for seven African nations, while directing funding away from two others.
“These Tech Corps recruits will function as on-the-ground promoters for US tech”
Questions remain about whether the Tech Corps will even accomplish its goal. China has already laid the groundwork for boosting the adoption of its own AI systems through the country’s Digital Silk Road initiative, which brings Chinese technologies to developing nations, such as Egypt, Zambia, Pakistan, Serbia, Ecuador, and many others. “These Tech Corps recruits will function as on-the-ground promoters for the US tech in these emerging markets where China has already maintained, if not widened, its lead in marketing and in promotion,” Meicen Sun, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and MIT FutureTech affiliate, tells The Verge.
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