Whatsaminar Series I: AI development in Nigeria, Challenges and Opportunities

Nigerian youths took to the WhatsApp platform to rub minds and enlighten one another about the topic that became the subject of intriguing exchanges between Messrs. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg—Artificial Intelligence.
The occasion was moderated by Joshua Funbi Koya or JFK, and he started with an explanation of how the session was to proceed.
The panel  had Oluwafunmilayo Oshinubi. Olawale Abiola, Niyi Oke and Akolade Okunola, all of whom were graduates of the department of electronic & electrical engineering, Obafemi Awolowo University.

After presenting and welcoming members of the panel, the moderator delved into the serious business of the night as he fired the first question, asking members of the panel to explain what they understood by AI the first time they heard about it.
While Akolade Okunola suggested that football gaming presented him with understanding AI the first time, Oluwafunmilayo Oshinubi mentioned that a humorous encounter between Soji Ilori, a lecturer at Obafemi Awolowo University, and one of his project students at the time let her to venture into artificial intelligence.
For Olawale Abiola, the movie, “I, Robot” was the premise on which he found AI whereas Niyi Oke opened up that he had thought it referred to the brainbox of a robot before he found out that it is much more than that.

What is Artificial Intelligence?
All four panelists agreed to the idea that AI seeks to imbue or equip machines or computers with the human intelligence and even sentience. According to the moderator, this definition of AI explained why it has become amazing or controversial, whichever way people choose to look at it.

What AI is not 
The panelists then clarified that AI and robots were not the same. Oke mentioned that “AI is not automation. AI is not robots. AI is basically a piece of software that learns and can apply its learnings to serve any purpose you can choose”. In her statement to corroborate this position, Oshinubi maintained that “not all robots are artificially intelligent.”
Okunola highlighted that it was easier to think about what constituted AI rather than what did not, as there were limitless opportunities. He then suggested that the less developed nations could have much to show as to what did not constitute AI because of “how crudely we detect faults in power lines, manage tourism business, handle crime detection and management, and so forth”.
Abiola added that “any device, software or bot that cannot learn from its environment and take possible actions of survival cannot be termed AI”.

Application of AI
When prompted by the moderator, the panelists started to mention real world
examples of the applications of AI.
Oke pointed to the Facebook image recognition AI for tagging friends in pictures while Abiola talked about the optical character recognition software for detecting texts in pictures, as well as the YouTube speech recognition feature.
Oshinubi indicated that a project she was working on was to serve as a house assistant, and would recognize speech and detect actions. Okunola rounded off with the example of the Google app that learns one’s persistently visited topics and then provides targeted content based on the user’s interests that it has learnt. He also gave an example bordering on the use of hotel assistants that could help hotel managers and users manage their experiences better.

Opportunities in AI
The panelists seemed to agree that education and enlightenment were the key first steps to tapping into AI. Oluwafunmilayo Oshinubi advised the group to be “openminded” and to expect the “unthinkable”.
Similarly, Akolade Okunola noted that “the starting point is for us to keep ourselves updated with [what] our peers do globally”. He then went on to warn that mediocrity should never be tolerated, saying “And this is why I stand on the point that we should never ever allow our society impose or foist mediocrity on us as the way to go”. He encouraged members of the group to learn the science of AI on educational platforms and to take important cues from the manner in which companies abroad did “basic” things such as “farming, microgrid set up and so on”. In rounding off on the point, he
urged members of the group to regard the exchanges between Messrs. Musk and Zuckerberg as “a battle of wits that must be seen from an open-minded perspective, rather than the bias that each of them exudes”.
Niyi Oke stated that as electrical engineers, members of the group had started to be equipped for AI, because, according to him, “All of us have the background knowledge of electrical engineering which is the grandmother of AI with computer science being its mother”. He concluded that the forum was helping to learn about AI, and that members of the group should then look to apply what they learn to whatever they loved to do, and not necessarily “techy stuff”.
Olawale Abiola quoted a 2017 PWC report that, according to him, stated that “63% of 2500 consumers agree that AI would help solve complex problems that plague modern society”. He went on to calm members of the group down about the fears of purported job losses as a result of AI, quipping that “With regards to loss of jobs as a result of AI, new jobs will emerge due to [these] evolving technologies”.
JFK, the moderator, then suggested that Abiola had “touched a very sensitive part that psychologists would be interested in to defend why AI cannot win humans” after the latter posited that AI merely does what it has been trained to do, and does not have “social awareness, conscience, mercy or remorse”.

 Q & A session with the Audience
In response to Abdulhafeez Odetoyinbo’s question as to what “economic sense” it made to “spend so much to build something that will mimic human intelligence alone” after he had listed beneficial areas of AI such as in geology and health, Niyi Oke asserted that “the truth is we have not even been able to mimic the brain yet, not even close” while Akolade Okunola suggested that such expenses as mentioned by Odetoyinbo could actually yield a good return on investment, citing the Boeing example.
On his part, Adedoyin Betiku wondered as to the possibility of the society getting to a stage, with further AI developments, such that human creation such as robots would start to see their creators as “inferior” since “AI in its truest [form] will be so advanced that it goes back to the basics of Eden, knowledge of good and evil”.
Niyi Oke then expressed, in response to Betiku, that he thought “AI is only as powerful as what we put it in charge of”. He continued, “If we put it in charge of governance, it will govern our lives. And may decide to eliminate us”.
Also responding to Betiku, Akolade Okunola dismissed the fears as being part of the “hysteria” that comes with new knowledge discoveries but insisted that government and policy makers must spearhead the development in AI so as to provide a clear direction for the society.
In commenting on Betiku’s question, Olawale Abiola mentioned that “the greater threat from AI comes from developing machines that are better decision makers than us”.
Wandji Danube shared information about his graduate studies in respect of AI, and mentioned that he was interested in using neural networks and fuzzy logic to aid “the control as well as kinematic mapping of robotic manipulators”. Danube and Okunola then shared their views about the development of AI being aided by Neuroscience advances.
Gbenga Falodun queried as to what the panelists thought would be the threshold in the development of AI, and if they thought humans could create humans. For Okunola, “it is hard to predict what the threshold will be at the end, but I do not realistically see humans create humans. It is frankly an unrealistic thing to do”.
For Oke, “We can surely create something very close [to humans]. If we get AI right, add some humanoid robot and we have something very close. But I do not think [we] can create a human with tissues, hearts and brains with DNA, evolution and soul”.
Olufunke Balogun, however, disagreed with Oke on this position. Odetoyinbo and Okunola then noted that so much more was still to be learnt about the brain, and this suggested that AI still had a very long way to go in its development, since it had yet to come near the brain, in terms of functionality, with the limited knowledge about the latter that the society presently has.
In rounding off the Whatsaminar, Oke warned that putting AI in charge of robotic
troops’ deployment amounted to “looking for trouble”.
The overall commentary about the session was that it was civil, fruitful, enlightening
and enriching, and apart from the top quality of the ideas that the panelists mooted, the
beautiful and constructive commentary and interjections by the moderator, and later on
members of the group, as the event proceeded, helped to spice things up.

Background Note
This whatsaminar—coined from the name of the platform on which it is
presently hosted, WhatsApp, and the word “seminar” was hosted by OAU Elect/Elect class of 2014 (NUCLEUS) led by Betiku Adedoyin and Arowele Ayomide.