Senior lecturer of Information Technology at the distance education department, Dr. Simon Peter Kafui Ahetor has called for the need to understand the use of artificial intelligence for daily activities.
He was speaking at the School of Information, and Communication studies on a panel discussion on the topic: “Responses to Chat-GPT: Perspectives from Ghanaian Academics, Media and Information Technology Practitioners.
This event was held as part of the activities to commemorate the day of the scientific renaissance of Africa.
“I think the best thing for us to do is to understand what [AI] means. So, I believe nothing has changed. Very soon robots will be suing us. Robots will be applying to attend institutions like ours. And we will have no moral rights to not allow them. Example, there is this humanoid called Sophia that has citizenship of one country; Saudi Arabia. And if Sophia applies to come to the University of Ghana, we don’t have any law or rule or policy to say that we will not admit Sophia. So that is where we are going.”
Addressing concerns raised about the role of Chat-GPT in our academic institutions, Lecturer at the Department of Information Studies at the University of Ghana, Dr Awudu Kareem, highlighted the immense potential of AI and the benefits it could bring to the teaching and learning environment.
“As teachers, we can use Chat-GPT to convert our learning objectives into interactive lessons. It can generate ideas for us to prepare lessons, tutorials, and all kinds of our assessments. Now, we have teaching assistants (TAs) doing tutorials. We can use Chat-GPT as such that tutors or TAs will facilitate the learning instead. We can train them so that instead of teaching the student, the student will have individualized or personal tutors by way of using Chat-GPT.”
Dr Ahetor, on the other hand, has assured that AI poses minimal danger to humanity.
”You shouldn’t be worried because at least now you are aware of Chat-GPT. The key thing here is capacity building and infrastructure development. Protests will continue as and when technologies come in. Having the tool doesn’t mean you can solve all problems. It’s understanding the use of it and using it sustainably. It is time we incorporate it in whatever we do when designing our curricula and timetables and all.”
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Story by | John David Afeti | univers.ug.edu.gh
