Technology and media industry experts are calling for data collaboration as part of fostering an artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem in the country.
The CEO of Future Africa, Iyin Aboyeji and CEO of Datafight, Joshua Olufemi, made the call on Monday in Abuja while speaking as panellists at the 2024 Journalism, Digital Technology and AI Dialogue organised by the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) on “The Global AI Landscape and Opportunities for Nigeria (Africa)”.
CJID is a Nigerian non-governmental organisation established in 2014 and was initially known as the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ).
In 2020, we expanded our reach beyond Nigeria to enter specific niche markets in Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and The Gambia, including Cameroon, Senegal and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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Aboyeji said he believes data is the biggest driver of collaboration.
“If the industry comes together and declares that we're going to co-create data, data warehouses and data docks, then we can unlock that special leverage where each of us can tell a story based on our own insights, knowledge and tools that helps decision makers and society understand what's really going on,” he said.
Aboyeji referred to the digitisation of old newspapers, a project embarked on by ArchiveNG founder, Fuad Lawal, noting that this should become an industrial endeavour.
He described AI as a major technological shift, adding that it would raise productivity barriers and give journalism a business model.
Olufemi noted that data gaps were of concern as available data was not fully digitised, calling for the media pages of past publications to be made into digital versions.
He said the accuracy of government data was flawed and called on journalists and data analysts to go beyond available press releases and ask questions.
Mr Tsema Ede Okoye, Project Leader, Joint Civil Defence Fund, supported the pair, stressing the need for advocacy, research and active collaboration.
Adaora Ikenze, META’s director of public policy, said Meta has always been an AI company and “we have always been a company rooted in AI technology.”
“The reason we've been able to bring our platform and products to the world is because of the foundation of AI that Facebook (now Meta) has always built on,” she said.
Speaking about language models and how Meta is supporting the growth of AI in Africa, Ikenze noted that, first of all, the platform has always been very intentional, and that large-scale language learning models, which are the foundation of artificial intelligence, must be open source.
“Meta has always maintained that the life language models underlying AI systems should be open source,” she said.
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CJID Launches Two AI-Powered Tools
During the conference, CJID launched two AI-powered tools: Dubawa Chatbot and Dubawa Audio platform.
Explaining how the tool works, Monsoor Hussain, CJID's innovation head, said the Dubawa chatbot will support fact-checkers by providing them with real-time internet data and access to more reliable sources of information.
“A CJID DAIDAC research study looked at 40 fact checks to analyse themes of disinformation around the conflict in the Lake Chad region and their impact on the public and found that 40 percent of disinformation has a significant impact on the public by sowing fear and fostering distrust.”
“AI tools will fight misinformation on WhatsApp, claim verification will provide up-to-date fact-checks and users will be able to report claims,” Hussain explained.
The Dubawa audio platform is an extraction tool that records radio shows, transcribes and extracts claims, and presents them to human fact-checkers for further verification.
The platform supports three languages - Nigerian English, Ghanaian English and Nigerian Pidgin – and key features include scheduling radio show recordings, automating YouTube downloads, uploading audio files in mp3 and .wav formats, transcription and claims extraction.
Hussain added that going forward, the company will work to build a more comprehensive and robust fact-checking ecosystem, address transcription challenges in the context of African languages and accents to further improve accuracy, and evolve the product into a comprehensive media monitoring tool.
In his welcome remarks, the CEO of CJID, Dapo Olorunyomi, said the organisation wanted to help reshape the industry’s awareness, knowledge and response to news reporting, news distribution and journalism funding structures.
He called for a significant investment in knowledge, lest the industry repeat the mistake of being late in recognising the importance of social media, where journalism has helped build technology companies and platforms through the value of its content.
In his speech, Olorunyomi said one of the objectives of the conference was to “showcase some of the six tools that our innovation and technology are building to solve real problems in the industry.”
“We've gathered here today to draw attention to a larger community question: what values will define the era of generative AI? There are already many use cases for AI in journalism: news aggregation, transcription, translation, content moderation and personalization, immersive storytelling, claim extraction for fact-checkers, research on known subjects, graphic design, and more. [e.g Microsoft designer, Adobe’s Firefly or Dall-E3]”GAI is a tool that helps us do our jobs faster and cheaper, whether that be sentiment analysis, HR or accounting, but we also have strong concerns that it will allow misinformation and disinformation to spread faster – even though it makes the disinformation seem much more credible and believable,” he added.
In their respective goodwill messages, Luminate Vice President, Toyin Akinyi, Assistant Commissioner for Cooperation with Nigeria and the European Union, Deluca, Commissioner for International Affairs of the Kingdom of Belgium to Nigeria, Peter Liencknegt, and Ambassador of the Spanish Embassy in Abuja, Juan Sell, commended CJID’s programme and urged journalists to rise to the occasion as AI provides them with powerful tools for news reporting and consumption.
Panellists Idris Akinnajo (Editor-in-Chief, Premium Times), Kadaria Ahmed (CEO, Daria Media) and Adeboye Adegoke (Manager, Paradigm Initiative) said AI is a game-changer for media but there is a need to extend beyond what the technology has been able to do in the sector.
Other sessions during the conference include “The Current State of AI and Digital Transformation in Nigerian Media and CSO Practices” with panellists Anita Eboigbe, Chief of Staff, Big Cabal Media, Fuad Lawal, Founder, Archive NG and Nelson Olanipekun, CEO, Citizen Gavel.
Other panellists at the conference included Africa Check’s David Ajokobi, FactsMatter NG editor Hannah Ajakaiye, DAIDAC research manager Silas Jonathan and The Conversation’s Africa editor Adejuwon Soyinka.
