Tech expert and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Bildup AI, Mr. Chibuike Aguene, has said that Nigeria must take proactive steps to equip its young people with the skills needed to thrive in the new era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that is revolutionizing industries and redefining the workforce.
He said that the future of work will be powered by hybrid intelligence, where human intelligence is augmented with AI.
Speaking on AriseTV Newsnight on Saturday, Aguene said that top CEOs worldwide are already investing heavily in AI with tangible results, adding that they are recognizing it is no longer a long-term bet, but a current necessity.
He said: “We ‘re not just experiencing a tech shift like we’ve seen over the past decades. We’re living through workforce revolution, the like of which we’ve never seen before, where intelligence is going to be hybrid, partly human and partly machine.
“Let me just give you a context of the talks about intelligence being hybrid. Everything that we see that exist today, like television, aircraft, talk about mobile phone was done by human intelligence, maybe with technology, but we are now transitioning into a super human employees era where intelligence will be hybrid. So, the workforce of the future will be powered by young people that will augment their intelligence with AI.
“All the top CEOs across the world are investing heavily in artificial intelligence, and most of them are seeing results. This is no longer a long term bet. It is something that they are seeing result. It’s an interesting time to be alive.
“But it also poses a challenge for us in Africa, where we have not even been able to equip young people to have developed human intelligence to meet up with what is happening in the world, and now we are talking about hybrid intelligence, where you have superhuman employees.
“Anybody that is going to be productive few years from now, will have to be equipped to have AI as your co-workers. So, we are supposed to start preparing. That is the direction that every business owner, that’s the conversation they should be having now: how to integrate artificial intelligence, how to prepare your staff and re-train them. You are hiring new people, AI must be at the center of it.
“AI is no longer an experimental thing. It is now operational. And any business that says this AI thing doesn’t concern us is not going to be in business for too long. So, I’m excited. It’s also a challenge, like I mentioned earlier, for us as a nation, to start thinking of, how do we prepare the next generation. Otherwise, we’re going to lose the next generation in terms of creativity and productivity.
“We are living in super human era. Super human intelligence is going to be augmented with AI. Let me just tell you something, anybody that is maybe five years old or three years old today will laugh when they hear that we once operated with only human intelligence. Their generation is going to experience something completely different. They’re going to live in an era where intelligence is hybrid. The way we are living now would just be part of history that humans once live in an era where they operated with only their intelligence. So, this is not something that we are going to just ignore. Nigerians should not be left behind”.
Aguene however said that to stay ahead, Nigeria must start preparing now by investing in education and training programmes that focus on developing hybrid intelligence, encouraging businesses to adopt AI, and promoting a culture of innovation and adaptability.
“AI is no longer a distant concept. It’s right here with us. We are going to reorganize or rethink entire workflows in every organization. There are three dimension to this. One is in terms of education, how we’re educating the people that will fill the workforce of tomorrow right now, I don’t think there is any school that you go and hear superhuman or you hear hybrid intelligence, but that’s what the reality they are going to face.
“So for a business owner, imagine, for example, you have a customer support personnel there, and they work nine to five. There’s a limit to what they can accomplish that within that timeframe. But if you augment the intelligence with artificial intelligence, they will be able to accomplish what would have taken maybe five months.
“We are entering an era of solving things that were termed impossible, so that on the business side. So if you do not apply that, you are not going to be in business. So that means that for business to work, you need talents that have AI as part of their skill set, that on that side. Then, the other part, which I think is very, very important, is all stakeholders coming together. This is not something that will happen in silos. There has to be cooperation across board. Like for those of us in the technology space, we have a platform that is already equipping people, preparing them to become superhuman. The term superhuman will become common. Hybrid intelligence will become common in the next few months or years. It’s something that all of us should start getting used to, because that’s the reality of what is going to happen, and it’s something we’re excited about. So there will be industry collaboration”, he said.
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