By Victor C. Ariole
Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL) under the leadership of Professor Sola Akinrinade held its 27th Convocation and deliberated on “The Humanities in The Modern Digital World”. University of Lagos Akoka was the venue and the Vice Chancellor, Professor Folasade Ogunsola anchored her brief speech on “Arts and Culture Constantly Remind Us of Who We are” – The Africans. It is only in Africa you have over 1 billion people speaking over 2,000 languages in the midst of over 6,000 languages of the world and Nigeria alone boast of over 550 languages, and all of them harbor cultures and civilisations yet to be explored. And. For the lecturer of the day, Professor Francis Egbokhare, every language has its own truth to tell and what seem to be superstition is now finding meaning in the current world – mythology,artifacts, meditation, contemplation, etc are opening new horizons and spheres for telling some level of truth; either in contrast with what science proclaims or in counter-position with propaganda disseminated as truth. In all, both Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Digitalization are greatly helping to bring to relevance knowledge items in their different silos hidden in over 6,000 languages of the world, which could be of great interest to Africa that speaks over 2,000 languages – both colonial and indigenous ones, while reviving over 1,000 dead ones.
Multiple scenarios exist to appreciate what Digitalization and AI offer to the African,if only Arts and the Humanities could use them to redirect the knowledge process to reveal “who the Africans are” distinct from the propaganda of “the others” that reduce the African to mere spectators of world events. A continent known to harbor the greatest number of youth population and arable land.
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One of the scenarios is that recursive knowledge is now greatly available – to the computer scientist, it is recovering and converging smaller solutions in their smaller devised codes, spread in different silos for a greater impact. Languages and their hidden knowledge items could be interlinked like the spider, African folks tale hero of the Akans, reveals. The Ananse tales. Check out how Digitalization and AI simulation are proving that artifacts and inscriptions around the Caucasus mountains give room to African codes and that, in deed, Africans have served as nobles and kings there. Some simulations and cross-referencing of Xhosa and Kikuyi languages in South Africa relate with a language in West Africa. It is also to be noted that stolen artifacts, now being returned in bits, as empty shells, have been well studied by tools relating to AI and the knowledge stored in digital form and is yet to be made known to the world. Knowledge once stored in artifacts are recursively cross-referenced to reveal the African past, though not yet made available to all. Africa’s Arts and Humanities’ Studies must crave to unveil them like Cheikh Anta Diop partially did in unveiling the mysterybehind the Egyptian pyramid as enabled by the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Scenario two, is the enablement of AI and Digitalisation to help researchers refresh and recall easily their memory as neuronally encoded facts that seem to be having issues in being recalled. For example, a lecturer in the gathering admits using AI to write a paper and it turned out to be better than she could have imagined. Here, issues of originality and plagiarism surface though mitigated by the new paradigm that allows up to 30% level of plagiarism. It is also a shift from a wider base of knowledge paradigm in which information gathering or facts at the bottom are now slightly tempered with and compacted to make room for next level on the knowledge paradigm which is Understanding, Analysis and Interpretation. Here, it takes a good and grounded researcher to discern effectively and efficiently expected outcome of their research enterprise. It is definitely not meant for undergraduate students. Undergraduate students are already abusing AI. Lecturers as gatekeepers must be at alert.
Scenario three, simulation of multiple possibilities are available in decision making like drawing up a decision tree. Here, selecting what to feed into the computer becomes the greater knowledge process and it falls within the range of understanding and analysis of the paradigm.
For Arts and Humanities that deal with proactive measures and attempt at elaborating basic research items with delayed gratification application possibilities, AI and Digitalization could be used to renew knowledge items about the African and create new African space that counters propaganda like Professor Abigail Ogwezzi-Nsikak advocates in her paper on “Citizens’ Journalism”. That is, getting each African community to tell appropriately its own story and relay it for greater impact as part of “knowing who we are”. For Prof. Olukoya Ogen, historicizing the humanities in the age of AI is cross-referencing knowledge for a better African view beyond seeing knowledge from mere scientific perspectives. For Professor Gideon Omachone, like already mentioned, over 2,000 languages are spoken by over 1 billion Africans; and relating them to one another could lead to explosive knowledge outcome never seen before if only researchers and African government could create agenda of knowledge sourcing and propagation backed by funding to leap frog Africa into its own niche carving prospects for further acknowledgement by those who have for over 21 centuries decided the fate of Africans into not letting them know “who they really are”.
For Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL), the duty of re-imagining the African heritage for a greater impact with AI and Digitalization is to be greatly canvassed so as to align with the Sustainable Development Goals of UN and the Agenda 2063 for Africa. As the baton of leadership is relayed to Professor Andrew Haruna the new President of NAL, let the work begin and let African Union (AU) wake up.
- ARIOLE, Ph.D, Professor of French and Francophone Studies, University of Lagos
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