Africa has played a crucial role in influencing the global artificial intelligence (AI) scene – Hon. Samuel Nartey George.
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Hon. Samuel Nartey George (MP), Minister for Communication, Digital Technology, and Innovations, has emphasized Africa’s pivotal position in influencing the global artificial intelligence (AI) scene, calling the continent the next “gold mine” due to its abundance of data.
The Minister cited Africa’s expanding youth population as a key factor driving the data economy during his remarks at Pan African AI Summit in Accra.
Africans will make up one in four of the world’s population by 2030, he said, with an average age of only 23.
He stated that the Ministry intends to hold “Africa Tech Davos” in Accra by the middle of next year in order to further Africa’s joint agenda.
He states that in order to develop a cohesive plan for Africa’s digital future, the gathering would bring together ICT Ministers from all over the continent, as well as international technology titans like Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Oracle, and African entrepreneurs.
One of the most urgent technical obstacles to the deployment of AI on the continent, according to the Minister, is language.
He clarified that while many agri-tech products that use drones or satellite photos for precision farming only work in English, local farmers in places like Bono or Damongo cannot use them.
He stated that the responsibility of creating large language models (LLMs) for regional languages has been assigned to academia in order to address this.
While work is still being done in Ewe and Dagbani, progress has been achieved in Twi, Ga, and Nzema. At the continental level, efforts are also being undertaken to create models for Hausa, Yoruba, Creole, and Swahili.
In his warning against depending too much on opinion when formulating policies, Hon. Nartey George underlined the importance of data-driven governance.
He emphasized that artificial intelligence (AI) must never take the place of human reasoning or “grey matter,” but rather serve as a “critical tool” to manage monotonous activities and free up human ability for higher-level thinking.
Source: newsthemegh.com
