Artificial Intelligence: Exploring the challenges of AI Integration in Africa and How to Deal with IT.
Global Essay Competition (St. Gallen Symposium).
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly gaining popularity in African society, transforming various aspects of human endeavor. However, the acceptance and use of AI in Africa are limited due to new issues.
AI enables robots to think like humans, sense, understand, and behave in similar ways. It significantly impacts businesses and organizations, adding value to operations, fostering innovation, personalizing activities, empowering employees, and supplementing staff.
AI modifies human behavior to enable more effective resource allocation, boosting output and improving public service delivery.
AI is particularly influencing healthcare, education, agriculture, business, and governance sectors. Despite its widespread adoption globally, African countries have varying adoption rates.
AI-driven technologies are transforming various industries, including finance, with platforms like Mama Money and Mukuru enabling quick money transfers. However, widespread adoption in Africa is still a ways off due to lack of critical elements for technology adoption.
The article aims to explore the challenges facing AI design, development, deployment, and application in Africa.
New Challenges in Africa’s Adoption of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds great promise for enhancing every aspect of the African social structure. However, the acceptance and usage of AI applications in African society bring up a number of challenges, such as government policy, user attitude, data integration, programming, ethics, and skill acquisition, as well as limited infrastructure and network connectivity.
The next sections outline and debate these challenges, which arose from the assessment of the literature on AI.
Acquiring Skills
This means gaining the knowledge and abilities needed for the creation, use, and deployment of AI applications.
Technical skill acquisition is required as a result of technological advancement. Business and IT leaders in Africa concur that improving or changing the stakeholders’ knowledge base is necessary to achieve the acceptance and application of AI technology (Mzmkandaba, 2019). Programming abilities are one of the most important and necessary competencies in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).
Additionally, Bianco (2021) noted that talent is one of the main obstacles to the use of this cutting-edge technology, AI.
AI projects, like any other, require the proper competence to thrive. All things considered, mastering AI skills is more challenging, and there is definitely an imbalance between supply and demand in the market.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a relatively new and developing technology that will both create and enhance occupations, requiring the development of new skills.
In a Gartner research circle survey, 56 percent of respondents said that acquiring new skills would be necessary to perform both newly created and current jobs. (Bianco 2021). Expert knowledge must be incorporated into the design and deployment of AI systems (Abu-Alsaad 2019).
Although IT professionals — software developers and engineers — design and create AI applications, they do not constitute the majority of AI consumers.
A major problem in developing markets like the African market is the lack of labor prepared for AI (Ajadi 2020).
Programming abilities are required because the development of AI involves machine learning and natural language processing, both of which need sophisticated algorithms. “How can AI be programmed to perform accurate operations?” is the question at hand.
For instance, during a chatbot encounter, a user may ask multiple queries that all require the same response. “What is the time?” and “Could you check the time,” for instance.
The chatbot system can provide an accurate response to the first query but a false one to the second.
As per Grosz’s (2018) findings, computational linguistics and natural language processing (NLP) systems also bring up some of the gravest possible problems, like failures in conversation systems, the effect of social chatbots on interpersonal communication, and problems with system performance.
Thus, among the necessary abilities for the successful adoption and usage of AI applications are ICT efficacy and programming abilities (Komarova et al. 2019).
Even while AI applications are increasingly being adopted and used, some corporate executives still find it challenging to put a number on the advantages of the technology.
While some of the advantages of AI are well-known, including quick response times, time savings, medical advancements, and income generation, users in Africa are still having difficulty understanding other advantages, such as process automation, improved learning, and improved customer experiences (Mzmkandaba 2019, Okonkwo and Ade-Ibijola 2021).
Because these technologies mimic human intelligence, which is essentially completing human tasks in a different way, the question that needs to be answered is whether or not adopting AI applications is healthy.
While certain stakeholders and corporate leaders have faith in artificial intelligence (AI), others are concerned that its application may cause disruptions to their established methods of operation (Coetzee 2018; Smith and Neupane 2018).
Africa is a developing continent where people are still learning about artificial intelligence and are unsure of its benefits. The adoption and application of AI in Africa is severely hampered by people’s fear of the unknown.
Absence of a Structured Data Environment
For AI projects to give consumers appropriate information or responses in any scenario, both the number and quality of data contents are critical.
If the data used to train the AI system does not accurately reflect the demographic factors in the targeted population, an AI will frequently fail.
For instance, a chatbot system needs detailed information about how it operates in order to respond to users appropriately; if the user requests information that is not stored in the data bank, the system will not function as intended.
In the context of development, where high-quality data are crucial indicators of growth in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and a critical input for the advancement of contemporary technology, data shortages in Africa are well-known.
African data ecosystems are in the “nascent stages of the African data revolution and the private sector is increasingly becoming a critical and dynamic player within African data ecosystems,” according to the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA 2016).
The quality of machine learning techniques depends on the quality of the data they are given. Prejudices present in data or even in the person who developed the process are incorporated into AI algorithms, which propagate social injustices.
In Africa, in particular, users are more likely to import machine learning algorithms that were developed and taught outside of the continent utilizing data that might not identify or be biased against significant segments of the African population (Kathryn Hume 2017).
A deeper, bigger, and more easily available pool of data is required in order to make AI solutions accessible to academics, developers, and users. High-quality data is not always available or accessible in developing markets, especially in unstable or conflict-affected areas (Ajadi 2020).
Absence of Appropriate Government Policies
A strategy on AI deployment tactics, similar to those in wealthy nations like Australia, China, France, and the United States, is required in African countries as AI-powered technologies start to permeate commercial, governance, and educational activities (Pedro et al. 2019).
While some African nations — Mauritus, Egypt, Zambia, Tunisia, and Botswana, for example — have recognized the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to increase GDP and have created national AI strategies, and South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya have passed data protection laws, these developments are still in their early stages (Pedro et al. 2019; Effoduh, 2020).
To control the benefits of technology for Africans, the African Union (AU) proposed structured regulation of AI laws and regulations (Effoduh, 2020). The majority of Africans accept technology with a “wait-and-see” mentality; they are late majority and laggard adopters of innovation (Okonkwo et al. 2020, 2021).
To increase the uptake of AI-powered technology among Africans, the African Union must expedite the establishment of a well-organized adoption and implementation procedure.
All things considered, there is a general dearth of pertinent regulations that may address and prioritize AI design and implementation.
Insufficient network connectivity and infrastructure
A lack of affordable networks and inadequate infrastructure are two of the main obstacles to AI adoption in Africa. In Africa, mobile technology network connectivity and infrastructure development are growing slowly (Marino Garcia and Kelly 2015).
A sizable portion of people in Africa lack internet access and are not connected. Adopting AI necessitates having sufficient wireless network access. Furthermore, the most expensive broadband in the world is available in African nations.
According to the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), nine of the ten least expensive countries in the world for internet access are in Africa, where costs range from 12 to 44% of GDP (Marino Garcia and Kelly 2020).
Overcoming AI Adoption Obstacles
Any innovation, including AI, must be used and used with the appropriate expertise. First and foremost, there is a bigger need for AI competence and it is much harder to master AI skill. Establishing favorable conditions in the fields of business, healthcare, education, and public ecosystems is crucial, as is motivating staff members to be interested in using AI to carry out their duties.
They will pick up the talents as a result. To incorporate the teaching of AI skills starting at the secondary level, the curriculum needs to be improved. Enhancing people’s aptitude for math and computer programming will enable them to pick up the essential AI skills.
Since artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are used in every part of life, everyone should be knowledgeable about AI. All fields of study could benefit from adding courses on computer fundamentals and introductory programming to help students learn AI abilities.
Early involvement by all stakeholders (citizens, lawmakers, and technical specialists) in the architectural design process is vital to ensure that social expectations, anxieties, and worries are taken into account and that no afterthought patching is required later.
By doing this, users’ understanding of the system will increase, which will lessen their uncertainty and fear of the unknown. For AI developers, a responsible framework for managing data that considers data diversity is advised.
The framework will increase the precision of AI system operations and facilitate the collection of thorough data for system development.
Concerns about ethical issues are significant when it comes to AI system deployment in Africa. The ethical and legal issues that have emerged as a result of AI technology have been addressed by numerous initiatives, including those from industry, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and educational institutions; however, the impact of these efforts is still minimal in Africa (Borenstein and Howard 2021).
AI technology selection, design, deployment, and use have ethical ramifications.
Thus, we concur with the suggestions put forth by Borenstein and Howard (2021) that developers must acknowledge that the technology they are developing has ethical undertones and that it is their responsibility as developers to address these issues. Reducing ethical problems in development will be facilitated by making developers aware of their moral and professional obligations.
In order to direct the growth of AI, the government and other professional organizations should also tighten their ethics regulations.
Fostering a favorable atmosphere stimulates creative thinking. African countries continue to face challenges in developing their infrastructure.
While rural communities suffer, most government initiatives focus on urban development. The government should make sure that its projects reach rural areas and provide reliable, sufficient network coverage everywhere.
For instance, most farming sectors that require AI to improve productivity and operations are located in rural locations. Furthermore, AI strategies and policies that serve as a basis for the advancement and application of AI technology should be established by the African Union and every individual African country.
And lastly, the growing economies of Africa need technology breakthroughs to spur growth. Therefore, it is imperative that the continent promotes the use of AI in a range of contexts and for a variety of purposes.
The creation of many organizations that can help address individuals’ uncertainties and anxieties ought to be promoted as part of an awareness campaign.
These organizations should develop effective strategies for resolving societal effects and increase Africa’s understanding and embrace of AI.
The government and commercial sector should promote local technological discoveries, and tech centers or start-ups should be formed to train the next generation of AI specialists.
CONCLUSION
Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds promise for enhancing human well-being and economic growth in Africa. To guarantee its advancement, Africa must, nevertheless, overcome challenges.
In order to improve AI design, development, and adoption, policymakers and industry participants need to put in place robust governance frameworks and infrastructures.
Accelerating AI adoption will also require developing appropriate awareness of African-specific difficulties and gaining adequate AI competence.
