Nigeria Information Technology Reporters Association (NITRA) on Wednesday, 28th of August, 2024, at the CitiHeight Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos, hosted industry players to brainstorm on the prospects and also proffer solutions to challenges of Artificial Intelligence’s adoption in Nigeria.
Tagged NITRA ICT Growth Conference 4.0, the event has the theme “Impact of AI on National Development: Prospects, Policies, and Challenges in Nigeria”.
Dr Oluseyi Akindeinde, the Founder, Hyperspace and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NeuRaL AI, providers of essential support to organisations intending to build and deploy Large Language Models (LLMs), in his contribution made it clear that AI adoption as disruptive as it is would not take away people’s jobs rather it would enhance their productivity.
Akindeinde also asserted that up-skilling of knowledge is a crucial requirement for sustainable AI adoption in Nigeria.
To discuss the topic Akindeinde started with the challenges facing AI adoption in Nigeria which includes phobia that it would disrupt and sack people from their jobs. He assured Nigerians that AI would not take their jobs, maintaining that the problem with Nigerians is that there is always fear whenever a piece of technology is introduced in the country. “Any time there is new technology that comes in, there is that phobia, there is that fear that it is going to be disruptive, yes it is disruptive but when a piece of technology is disruptive that means it can do things cheaper, it can do things faster and it can do things better. But some of the challenges are based on the assumption that AI is going to take our jobs, and because it is going to take our jobs, the first thing is to push it back and will not allow it.
“I am here to assure that AI is not going to take anybody’s job, it is the same thing about 25 years ago when we started hearing about internet, even Journalists felt at a time, are we still going to have newspaper, anybody can just go online and have a blog and start reporting, you know, are we still going to have TV since somebody would go on Youtube and upload a video. And if you look back you recall how information was consumed back then, when something happened you probably wouldn’t hear about that event until, maybe, 7 o’clock news or 9 o’clock news or the following day when the newspapers will report it, but when the internet came, it democratized information dissemination. The same thing is happening with artificial intelligence,” he said.
Akindeinde further stated that rather than take away jobs, Artificial intelligence is going to help Nigerians, adding that the intelligence is still artificial. “Whatever you are currently doing it is going to help your operation, it is not going to take your job because at the end of the day AI is artificial intelligence. Now for it to work that means something has existed which is human intelligence. That human intelligence has being with human for ages, which it put together to make artificial intelligence and the thing about AI is that the things humans find difficult to do, that is what AI is doing. The things we find easy to do, AI cannot do them. For instance, if I keep my phone on a platform and I said go into the room and pick my phone on the table, now the AI because you programmed it for the table, it will come back to tell you I can’t find your phone. But the human being will say okay, it is not on the table, it is elsewhere, he will pick it, but what humans find difficult, is what AI does better.
“As a Reporter, AI would make your job better; there is an app in the phone that as I am speaking, it is recording and not only recording, once I say stop, everything recorded, it would transcribe everything. Another person who doesn’t have it would use one hour transcribing the recording but the AI would do that seconds, so right now you can be more productive.
He said AI can also be used in the movie industry, saying that AI can listen to every conversation in a movie and transcribe in two minutes what would take one week or more to transcribe. He muted the idea of the need for training for Journalists on AI so that they will understand the workings of AI for proper information dissemination.
Speaking about the impact of AI on education, he said that Africa is wired for consumption, adding that they don’t produce and they don’t do things that affect the global economy all because of the educational system. He gave the instance of China where their educational system permits them to teach their children in their local language, the language they understand. “With AI when you are teaching in English it will be appearing to the person in his own language, everything is converted on the spot, it is not as if they are going to translate it, it is not as if you are going to teach Igbo teacher mathematics, no, AI can do that for you on the spot.”
Akindeinde disclosed further that AI can also help a vision impaired person by deploying a vision model to know what is happening around them. He decried the absence of skilled personnel among professionals for adjudication and or regulation of issues relating to IA, he therefore suggested that lawyers, Journalists, doctors and others should go for training to up-skill their knowledge on the workings of AI.
During the panel session he also tackled the question if Nigeria has the requisite skill to embrace the concept of artificial intelligence, he said that Nigerians do not have the requisite skill right now. “So, one of the things we have noted is that we don’t have that skill, even the regulator as well because the challenge is that technology will always precede regulation but if you want to regulate you can’t regulate what you don’t understand. How come we had protest and we cannot use AI to identify those who were looting, stealing or causing destruction, I know in other climes they have a data base where they can actually tell you the person. But in other to do all these you need the skill, you need the understanding of the piece of technology that you are going to be dealing with.”
He added that AI as a piece of technology is a general all-purpose technology that can be used across several industries, just like the internet. He said “It is technology for everybody and there is no special internet engineer because everybody has skill, internet skill, because we know it will help us.”
