A National Dialogue is required urgently around adopting AI

Lately, I’ve been attending AI events, however, very few of them are answering my deep questions about Artificial Intelligence. One of them focused on food and AI, another about a device as an AI companion and the most recent one of them by a global tech giant.

At the Food Indaba I was deeply impressed by just the idea of hosting an event about AI and food. One Chef who was a participant in the event highlighted the need to introduced African cruising into AI. The Chef felt that menus about Umphokoqo, umgqusho do not exist in the AI landscape. It was, therefore, his mission to ensure that African menus can be found in AI.

At the Food Indaba, Prof Marivate Vukosi delivered a keynote address that highlighted the importance of African languages in the AI era.

Another event, Samsung Unpacked hosted by Samsung revealed one of the thinnest Samsung foldable devices. During this event I had an opportunity to chat with Justin Hume, who is the Samsung South Africa VP of Mobile Experiences. He mentioned something profound about how we should view a smartphone such as the Samsung Fold 7. He pointed out that one ought to see it as an intelligent assistant. As a device by AI it becomes a tool that you use to plan and manage your life. This point came across clearly during a launch of the latest devices by Samsung. In delivering AI this South Korean company is working with Google, another company that recently hosted an AI event in South Africa.

At the Google AI event it became clear to me that the ground is shifting. The US giant has finally figured out how to position itself in the AI race. During this event it was made clear that Google is here to organise the worlds information once again. African languages were at the centre of discussions during this event. The company is working very hard to ensure that African people can experience AI in their own languages. In fact, the US tech giant painted a picture that in the near future it will be possible to speak to anyone around the world while speaking your own language while getting live translation.

From AI and food, to intelligent devices and the organisation of information to be rendered in AI it can be easy to conclude that enough is said and done about AI. Most AI experiences have been mainly product driven. It’s seems there’s an AI race for each company to grab the AI userbase of the future. While that is useful, I believe that the discussion is everywhere and lacks focus.

The US has made it clear what is their agenda in AI. Is there a South Africa agenda on AI? What should be the focus of AI in South Africa? Is it just skills to use tools developed elsewhere? Is there a need to develop a local AI platform to address African needs? To answer these and other questions there’s a need for a National AI Dialogue to consider the implications of adopting AI.

Product AI events will only provide partial answers to these questions. Such a dialogue requires academia, business and perhaps civil society to gather and deliberate what South Africa wants from AI, how to engage with AI and how the country can seize the moment. Considering that the planned National Dialogue does not feature technologists, it is vital that the tech sector outlines the future of AI in South Africa in collaboration with other stakeholders in society.

Wesley Diphoko is a Technology Analyst and the Editor-In-Chief of FastCompany (SA) magazine.

*** The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Independent Media or IOL.

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