Innovators, industry leaders, and seasoned professionals gathered to discuss AI’s purpose in Africa’s key sectors.
- Experts agreed that AI is a powerful tool, particularly in the health sector.
- From a legal perspective, the greatest threat from AI is its potential to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few corporations.
- With AI as a resource in Africa, there is a clear call for models and frameworks that are designed to serve African-based principles and values.
Delegates explored AI’s transformative impact across various sectors whilst delivering important critiques about ethical applications and regulations of artificial intelligence (AI).
Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, Solly Malatsi, highlighted its potential to revolutionise Africa’s future, which was the central theme at the CNBC Africa’s inaugural AI Summit at Indaba Hotel in Fourways.
The inaugural summit sponsored by Telkom in partnership with Forbes Africa and VISA, launched on Thursday, August 14, with important panel discussions moderated by CNBC Africa anchors.
Medical practitioner and CEO of Alpha and Omega MedTech, Dr. Brett Lyndell-Singh highlighted AI’s applications in healthcare, explaining how it is already being used to improve diagnostics in radiology, pathology, and dermatology.
Lyndell-Singh said, “I think it can be used for education [and] health awareness, but it cannot replace a doctor, especially [in] surgery. It’s not going to replace surgery, especially in Africa, any time soon…but you can actually have homoeopathic remedies that you can get from AI and ask it to give you some common remedies for flu, for example.”
Associate Lawyer at The Digital Law Company, Rorke Wilson, offered a legal perspective on the technology. Wilson acknowledged that AI introduces new digital security threats, such as a personal assistant AI that could compromise a user’s entire data ecosystem.
He argued that the primary threat is not the potential of a sentient AI, but rather AI being used to consolidate power and wealth to a few corporations. In the panel session, he noted that South Africa has its own commission in the works and later told Wits Vuvuzela, that perhaps the EU-AI Act-the first major legislation of artificial intelligence in the world, can be used as a “great framework” for creating a new regulation in South Africa.
The summit’s panel on education argued that it should be embraced for disruption. Professor Kat Yassim, Associate Professor at the University of Johannesburg’s Department of Education Leadership and Management, highlighted that young people are “digital natives”. She emphasised that universities must adapt their teaching and assessment methods alike.
Yassim challenged the traditional academic view that students have a propensity to cheat. “Should our measurements not be different? Should it always be about a mark? And that is what AI is forcing us to do. It’s forcing us to question. It’s forcing us to evolve,” she said.
She advocated for a collaborative learning environment where professors and students co-create knowledge and experiment with AI as a tool. Yassim provided a striking example from her own class, where 35% of students went on to become digital leaders in their schools after designing their own learning platforms using an AI-assisted process.
She asserted that this success is the true measure of learning and impact, demonstrating that when AI is used as a tool to enhance personal abilities, it can help students make a real difference in their communities and careers.
Overall, the summit painted two sides of the AI debate in Africa. One focused on the immense potential for innovation and the other on the critical need for ethical oversight and equitable development.
FEATURED IMAGE: From Left to Right: Founder of World Wide Worx, Arthur Goldstuck; Old Mutual Group Chief Technology and Data Officer, Dhesen Ramsamy & Openserve Chief Information Officer, Reubin Layman Photo: Katlego Makhutle
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