Noel Nonso Ozoemena is an AI enthusiast, who has a keen eye for new technologies. His interest in AI started in 2021 when he was asked to mentor some startups in the Data Science Nigeria community. He worked with them to improve on their go to market strategy. Since then, he has moved on to facilitate workshops on practical use of AI, one of which was for the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID). He also served as a judge on tech innovation panels, including that of Conrad Challenge, a global initiative for young digital entrepreneurs to showcase their talent. In this interview, with GBENGA AKINFENWA, he spoke on the significant advancement of AI, its potential in reshaping the future of the country, the risks ahead and many more.

As a professional, what are the most significant advancements in AI?
The significant advancements in AI include enhancements in deep learning. AI has improved to the extent that it can simulate the way the human brain analyses and processes speech and text, as well as recognising images and providing insight to them. AI also memorises inputs – speech, text, images over time and has the ability to use what it has learnt from previous inputs to predict to a great degree of accuracy outcomes from the inputs.

This forms the basis for OpenAI’s chat GPT, Grok as well as other models. Another significant advancement in artificial intelligence is reinforcement learning and Autonomous Systems. This is very key in robots undertaking more human tasks by enhanced decision-making via a trial-and-error approach.

The agent or robot gets better by getting rewards and penalties based on interacting with its environment. The motivation to get more rewards makes the agent make better decisions. This is a major leap in AI and has helped robots learn from their experiences just as humans do.

No doubt, AI has come to stay, what impacts does it have on daily lives?
As AI improves in scale and efficiency, its impacts on our daily lives cannot be overstated. Apart from helping us to improve tasks and personalise our experiences, AI has enabled us to do things that seem unachievable. With AI, we now push boundaries and break glass ceilings that would never have been possible two decades ago.

For instance, the increasing adoption of smart homes and other smart devices is evidence of the increasing influence of AI in our lives to make living easier and more convenient for us. Even at the workplace, voice-activated assistants like Google Assistant, Alexa and Siri help out with tasks and reduce workload albeit with remarkable efficiency, accuracy and consistency.

The use of AI in navigation has also made mobility easier as it can help to plan one’s movement in an urban area by identifying routes with shorter travel distances, as well as providing real-time traffic updates. In medicine, wearable AI has helped to monitor sleep patterns, and stress patterns by measuring and analysing key parameters in the human body. It also helps medical doctors to analyse images better, whilst also improving their ability to predict patient outcomes.

AI is also very key in the personalised experiences we encounter when using apps like Spotify, Netflix, TikTok, and search engines. There are AI-dependent algorithms that monitor habits and preferences and then make recommendations based on what they’ve learned about a user to enhance user experience, while using such apps or platforms.

With the obvious misuse of AI, what are the potential risks, and how can we mitigate them?
Like every human invention, AI is subject to misapplication and misuse. Despite the endless possibilities that AI provides, one cannot disregard the consequences of the negative application of AI.

Bad actors have devised means of using AI-generated speeches or images to victimise their targets. They use deepfakes to create untrue scenarios to manipulate public opinion negatively. To mitigate this particular misuse, users must see the need in properly labeling AI-generated content.

There is also a need for a fair regulatory space that protects people, IP and businesses. Public awareness of AI use and misuse will also help.

AI can sift through a huge quantity of data and extract information that can be seen as encroaching on the privacy of unsuspecting users. This can lead to surveillance abuse and identity theft as data can be accessed without consent thereby putting an individual at risk.

This can be mitigated by creating strong data protection laws and ensuring strict enforcement of the same laws so that there will be deterrence. Also, there must be accountability and transparency in the way AI data is collected and processed to protect the private information of users.

What role can AI play in addressing societal challenges such as healthcare, education and other critical sectors?
In a developing country like Nigeria that is grappling with socioeconomic problems, the application of AI in the right way will certainly mitigate some of the sectoral challenges. In sectors like education, health, agriculture, security and the creative economy, AI will come in handy.

AI can help in education by providing teacher support tools wherein teachers can develop lesson plans, grade assignments and other admin tasks giving them time and space to concentrate on learning and instruction. AI can also provide a platform for personalised learning wherein students will be made to learn based on their strengths and weaknesses, as well as at their pace.

This will also help in the language translation of various subjects for easy understanding by the students. With increasing Internet penetration in Nigeria, AI can support remote learning in far-flung areas of the country.

Just like in education, AI can provide administrative support for health personnel via scheduling patient appointments, booking their records and other admin tasks, thereby giving the medical personnel enough time to concentrate on diagnosis and treatment.

Nigeria’s tropical climate and geographical location make the country susceptible to diseases. AI can consider these attributes and monitor, track and forecast disease outbreaks before they even happen, hence giving the government enough time to plan and strategise on how to mitigate the effects of such outbreaks.

Nigeria’s growing internet penetration particularly in the rural areas provides opportunities in the area of telemedicine wherein AI virtual assistants or chatbots will provide vital medical information in the local dialect or language to people who have limited access to healthcare facilities or qualified healthcare personnel. This will provide some basic healthcare to such people.

How can AI boost productivity in a digital economy?
AI has an enormous capacity to unlock the vast potential of the creative economy by boosting productivity within it. AI can sift through large amounts of data swiftly and accurately to extract information that assists businesses in making decisions that give them an edge over their competitors. Some tasks within the digital ecosystem are repetitive.

AI can be used to execute such tasks with consistent accuracy thereby freeing up the employee to expend their time and energy on creative and innovative tasks. This can also be referred to as talent optimisation for enhanced productivity. AI also provides real-time support to workers so that they learn on the job. This helps not only in upskilling the worker but also reduces costs as there will be a minimised need for training.

How do you envision AI evolving in the next five to 10 years?
The growth potential is limitless. This is however, dependent on if there is no large-scale compromise or failure of AI that causes huge damage. There is also the need to find a balance between the deployment of AI, as well as the ethical well-being of society. This will to a large extent determine how far AI will evolve in five years. Nevertheless, there is great potential.

In five years, AI’s ability to know more about individuals will be more accurate as the data they’re being trained on gets refined and improved. These tools will get better at identifying very personal details of their users such as predicting their moods, knowing when they are hungry and even suggesting skincare routines for them. AI’s capacity to innovate and create will nearly be at par with that of human beings in the next five years. AI music and movies will almost rival human production in the near future. Finally, with the aid of quantum computing, AI will undertake more complex tasks and solve more critical problems such as specifying treatment for diseases, drawing up a plan for a building or estate, providing a complete investment plan for a farmer and modeling the profitability of a company using economic indices over some time.