Miracles, monsters of Artificial Intelligence in new school year

The new school year is upon us like a whirlwind in Kenya, and pupils, students, parents, teachers and school administrators are gearing up to ensure a successful start to this gigantic national exercise.

The “mwalimu” instincts in me, and the decades of classroom conditioning, are stirring strongly in my head and heart. Although I may not be frequenting classrooms or lecture theatres for the next few months, my thoughts will be constantly there.

I will peg my thoughts on to a few experiences I have recently exchanged with my linguistic, creative and pedagogic colleagues. Here are three of those uppermost in my mind.

Economist and theatre veteran J.D. Chege, a long-time friend, was the first to bring to my attention the now-widely circulated claim that you can write a novel in a matter of minutes.

Then “Ustadh” Henry Indindi, the Kiswahili maestro and ardent advocate of innovative and imaginative approaches to the teaching of our language, shared with me a provocative article by a scholar named Gundula Bosch.

She suggests that we should lay more emphasis on critical thinking in our higher degree programmes, rather than dwelling on narrow “specialist” skills. This is real food for thought in these days of strident “hands-on” (rather than brains-on) advocacy.

My third “experience” is still a search and study process. I am trying to trace, analyse and assess the latest Kiswahili terminology (msamiati) for the avalanche of AI (artificial intelligence) developments currently dominating the communication and information technology field.

I told you in our recent chats of a CHAUKIDU (Chama cha Ukuzaji wa Kiswahili Duniani) International Conference held in Arusha just before Christmas last year.

I did not attend but I noted that the indaba was centred on the role of AI (which we now call “Akili Unde” instead of “Akili Bandia” as before). I am searching the conference presentations for a comprehensive glossary of the emerging terminology. Maybe you, too, can join me in the search (mainly online of course).

Have you, however, noted the connections among my three experiences? It is AI, of course. It is almost certain that AI, or GAI (Generative Artificial Intelligence), as we are increasingly calling it, will be the most important topic in technology and communication in 2024. So, keep informing yourself and perfecting at least the basic skills you need to live comfortably with AI.

Basically, AI is a complex of technologies that enable computers to imitate the human brain with an uncanny closeness. It enables computers, for example, to perform elaborate functions, like recognising spoken and written language and other forms of data, and “taking action” about it. This latest thrust in information and communication technology is replete with exciting possibilities and opportunities but also fraught with disturbing questions and uncertainties for human civilisation. AI is as full of miracles as it is loaded with threats or monsters.

This is why concerned people are calling for urgent ethical regulation or even legislation to contain Artificial Intelligence and its ramifications. My main concern, as a teacher, is how we can train and guide our young charges to cope with the double-edged technology of AI. We must, however, begin by informing and educating ourselves about Artificial Intelligence and the whole field of digital operations.

We teachers, and especially the “bbc” (born before computers) elderly ones, must strive to master the basics of digital technology and to keep abreast with the latest developments. Otherwise we may find ourselves in situations where our students or even pupils know infinitely more than we, their supposed teachers and guides. In any case, no one can today operate meaningfully in professional communication, of which teaching is a major branch, without a reasonable mastery of ICT (information communication technology).

To go back to the example of a novel that may be written in “a matter of minutes”, using AI, where does that leave the literature or creative writing teacher? I have had a glance at the basics of the process, but I have not tried it out to see the results. One of the programmes (StoryNest.ai) promises full-length texts of up to 70,000 words. Truth to tell, I do not feel particularly inclined to experiment with these “chat”-generated marvels. Mine is the expected resistance of a diehard conservative to progressive developments. But I know, deep within, that these developments are inevitable and unstoppable.

Their implications, however, are mind-boggling. The “Akili Unde” (structured intelligence) technologies, as the Waswahili call them, are capable of generating not only novels, but also nonfiction, essays, term papers and dissertations. I will not delve into the challenges of such “works” for us general readers, publishers and, especially, professors and other academics, “peer-reviewing” papers and marking and grading students’ essays and theses.

I have been joking with friends that, if AI can generate essays and papers for students, it should also provide marking and grading schemes for the professors and other examiners. But then, what happens to originality and individual creativity? Will excellence in literary scholarship, for example, be determined by genuine human sensitivity and response or by ability to package data and feed it into a computer? With aspersions being cast upon the genuineness of some East African degrees, the matter may easily go beyond a joke.

This is where the value of Indindi’s recommended paper comes in. Gundula Bosch suggests, in the paper, that we should lay a great deal of emphasis on “critical thinking”. The primary competence to inculcate in and impart to our pupils, students and scholars should be the ability to reason, to wonder about not only the “whats” and “hows” of phenomena, but also their “whys” and “what ifs”. Here I am paraphrasing, from memory, our great ancestor, Philip Ochieng, in I Accuse the Press.

I do not know if AI has got to this stage, but if it has not, that thinking capacity may keep us humans at least one step ahead of the machine. Should I declare that this column was not AI-generated?

- Prof Bukenya is a leading East African scholar of English and [email protected]