Former Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has pointed out the relationship between digitalisation and artificial intelligence and their immense on the progress of Africa in the digital age.
Delivering a keynote address at the London School of Economics and Political Science’s Africa Summit in London on Saturday, March 28 on the the Artificial Intelligence and Unifying Borders, Dr. Bawumia explained that AI is the latest transformation of the digital age, and countries which have not fully embraced digitalisation cannot effectively deploy AI, which he said will shape everyday life.
“The digital age has now entered the phase of artificial intelligence (AI) and as the e-governance Academy (eGA) of Estonia has put it, ‘the coming decade will be shaped by the integration of artificial intelligence into governance and every day life’,”he said.
With digitalisation another form of the digital age, having come earlier, Dr. Bawumia asked whether African countries could leapfrog digitalization to embrace artificial intelligence phase.
The short answer, Dr. Bawumia noted, “is no,” warning that Africa must rather be “very awake to, and fully participate in the artificial intelligence phase of the digital era.”
Dr. Bawumia noted that according to the International Monetary Fund’s AI preparedness Index (2023) a number of countries in Africa who are currently most prepared for the AI revolution, including Botswana, Cape Verde, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Tunisia, and South Africa are countries who are advanced in digitalisation.
“It is not a coincidence that these also happen to be amongst the most digitalized countries on the continent.
“Indeed, AI is not possible without data and a data-based economy is not possible without digitalization because without digitalization, you cannot have the massive datasets and computations required for today’s AI models.”