By Nigeria needs up-skilling of knowledge of AI for sustainable AI adoption instead of considering if there will be lost of jobs.
That was part of the recommendation by Founder, Hyperspace and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NeuRaL on AI adoption at the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters Association (NITRA) ICT Growth Conference 4.0, with the theme “Impact of AI on National Development: Prospects, Policies, and Challenges in Nigeria”.
Akindeinde assured that AI would not take jobs, noting any time there is new technology that comes in, there is the 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.”
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.
He stated that human intelligence has being with human for ages stressing that AI can listen to every conversation in a movie and transcribe in two minutes what would take one week or more to transcribe.
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, and suggested .that lawyers, Journalists, doctors and others should go for training to up-skill their knowledge on the workings of AI.
An in a penal session, he said “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.
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, saying “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.”
