Africa should seize the AI moment

Artificial intelligence (AI) is slowly emerging as a key tool for national and organisational competitiveness. In their report, ‘How artificial intelligence is transforming the world’, Darrell M. West and John R. Allen explain how AI technology is transforming every walk of life.

According to them, it is a wide-ranging tool that enables people to rethink how to integrate information, analyse data, and use the resulting insights to improve decision making.

Since AI supports important insights and powerful analytics that facilitate decision-making, Africa has the opportunity to leverage on it to boost her competitiveness globally.

But despite the potential of AI to transform the continent, it is time for African people to change.

This is because in today’s world, the amount of data that is being generated, by both humans and machines, far outpaces humans' ability to absorb, interpret, and make complex decisions based on that data.

That is why irrespective of the narrative forms, AI is the basis for all computer learning and is the future of all complex decisions.

And it will disrupt employment opportunities. It is also the foundation for future jobs, security, industrial development, education, health, agriculture, and government just to mention a few areas of application.

In his book, AI Superpowers, Kai-Fu Lee explains how China was years, if not decades, behind the United States in AI.

However, during the last three years, China caught AI fever and its interest in the area now outsmarts everyone.

This has seen the excitement over AI spreading from the technology and business worlds to government decisions. And now it has even reached Beijing’s kindergarten classes.

At first, the Chinese did not venture into AI because they were enthralled by it. Their competitive spirit did and were rewarded with what Lee refers to as the Sputnik Moment — a time when the Soviet Union landed on the Moon and inspired the Americans to do the same.

Shocked that the world’s most intelligent machines, AlphaGo — a computer programme that plays the board game Go — could defeat China’s top player, Ke Jie in the game Go, the country went into reflection.

When the machine emerged victorious against legendary Korean player Lee Sedol in a five-game duel, more than 280 million Chinese watched the game. Although AlphaGo was a challenge, it had inspired China into an AI frenzy.

Today China is accelerating AI in investment, research, and entrepreneurship to unprecedented levels. Venture capitalists, IT behemoths, and the Chinese government are all pouring money into AI firms.

Chinese students have caught the AI bug as well, enrolling in advanced degree programmes and using their cellphones to stream lectures from international researchers. And to catch the AI wave, startup entrepreneurs are also pivoting, reengineering, or just rebranding their businesses.

But what is Africa’s Sputnik moment?

The continent may not have the collective will to develop an army of AI experts to meet industry requirements but individually we could spark the necessary debate to propel our slumbering universities into action.

The private sector also needs to continually seek to close the growing mismatch between labour supply and demand. Policymakers too must leverage data to predict future jobs and strategies on how relevant training can always be made available.

Integrating AI in all aspects of economic development could help solve the many problems. For example, if Africa leverages AI in precision farming and value addition (industrial development), she can create jobs, improve food security and boost economic development.

Since virtually all jobs will require some AI algorithm, key performance indices for universities should also be revised to include the number of students aligned with emerging jobs.

The index might force universities to start talking to employers and policymakers to understand their employment needs.