Subsequent Wave: Is Nigeria prepared for the AI revolution

First Revealed 14 April, 2024

Synthetic intelligence (AI) is predicted so as to add $15 trillion to international GDP by 2030, boosting nations’ development by 25%. The place does this go away Africa? To date, nine African nations—Benin, Egypt, Ghana, Mauritius, Rwanda, Senegal, Morocco, Sierra Leone and Tunisia—have drafted nationwide AI methods, representing solely a handful of African nations desperate to thrive within the space.

A great AI coverage should clearly define governance practices round knowledge assortment, administration, safety and storage. Knowledge safety is the muse of strong AI policymaking, nonetheless, solely 36 out of 54 African nations have established formal data protection regulations.

A 3rd of African nations don’t have knowledge safety legal guidelines. Chart by Stephen Agwaibor, TC Insights

The introduction of AI has each advantages and dangers. AI may worsen general inequality, a troubling pattern that policymakers should proactively handle to forestall the expertise from additional stoking social tensions. It has the tendency to gasoline misinformation by way of deepfakes and use creators’ works with out attribution. That is the explanation authorities establishments across the globe are introducing or revising policies to manage a few of the dangers that AI poses, making certain a saner society that may profit all.

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In the meanwhile, Nigeria is placing collectively its personal AI technique. This isn’t the primary time it’s doing so. In 2022, the then minister of communications and digital financial system, Isa Pantami, put collectively the primary Nationwide Synthetic Intelligence technique draft, a 190-page doc, which was ultimately not acted upon. It stays to be seen what plans Pantami’s successor, Bosun Tijani, has for the technique doc. In the meantime, Tijani just lately invited 120 AI researchers and practitioners to Abuja, to co-create a complete nationwide AI technique. The assembly is about to occur between April 15 and 18.

The Nigerian problem

The nice problem with constructing AI is infrastructure, one which Nigeria doesn’t have. For AI to work, it wants the next components: compute, knowledge and manpower. None of those three are simple to get. Regardless of boasting of over 400 startups, Nigeria continues to be missing expert AI researchers and knowledge analysts. Lately, a researcher faulted the ministry of communication’s want to coach 50,000 persons in AI, stressing that that quantity continues to be insufficient for the quite a few use instances Nigeria may exploit with the expertise.

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Drawbacks like this are the explanation why many Nigerians usually are not optimistic concerning the development of AI within the nation. Tijani has been criticised for getting his priorities all wrong. Nonetheless, some optimistic AI consultants argue that regardless of a few of these challenges, AI can thrive in Nigeria.

Some use instances

There are numerous use instances for AI in numerous fields like finance, nationwide safety, healthcare, prison justice, transportation and good cities.

A low-hanging fruit for AI fashions in Nigeria revolves round buyer care, healthcare, edtech and lending. Many banks and fintechs have simply adopted the chatbot perform as auto responders, which looks as if one of many best options to adapt. AI can work in medical prognosis, collating medical histories and predicting the potential for an ailment. In lending, AI is nice at figuring out whether or not a lender is creditworthy or not. AI also can predict the precise instructional outcomes in educating and scoring.

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The significance of assessing Nigeria’s (and by extension the continent’s) readiness for AI is in order that we are able to keep away from a consumerist method to the expertise. AI represents a chance for Africa to rise and take possession of advancing the expertise. With a inhabitants of millions of young people under 30, there’s a lot that Africa can do past simply counting on InstaDeep because the poster boy for something AI on the continent.

Joseph Olaoluwa

Senior Reporter, TechCabal

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