HOMEF SOE: Exposes Dangers of Artificial Intelligence.
By Katherine Abayomi, Port Harcourt
With new and emerging technologies, African leaders have been urged to be cautious of new technologies that tend to solve environmental and food crises. Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) in training with the theme: Implications of New and Emerging Technologies in Africa, as part of her School of Ecology session held in Port Harcourt, has drawn attention to the emergence of new technologies in Africa and Nigeria by extension and their negative implications.
The training noted that there are suitable emerging technologies; however, the negative impacts on the health, environment, and food systems of the African people and culture are more glaring following the choice of leaders.
While delivering a lecture on climate Change and Nature Colonialism, Prof Mamadou Goita stated that Africa has rich natural resources but is faced with challenges related to climate change.
“The price and cost of extractive activities in Africa are different as they destroyed the people’s spiritual, environmental, and traditional histories. The global north’s domination of African nations, people, and economies needed interrogation and called for collective action to demand positive change”.
Stephen Oduware states that technology is good, but not all are earth-friendly.”There is a relationship between humans and their environment; the environment can survive without humans, while humans can’t survive without the environment.
Many components push for Technofixes, but they wouldn’t solve the problem. They will only give it a cosmetic dressing, and the issue will remain—even creating a bigger problem for us.”
“The main intentions are not even mentioned, for whom, for what, and why they’re pushing the narrative of these technofixes; real logical solutions should respect nature and allow science to work with nature and not against nature. Natural cycles should be allowed, and considering the integrity of bio-diversity, looking at the Environmental and social impact of whatever we do in the communities, there should be free prior, informed consent, and ethics in our technological drive”.
Executive Director of HOMEF, Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, while speaking on the new and emerging technologies, especially in Africa, said the advancement in technology is very rapid. People hardly examine them nor look at the implications of having them; they believe that they must be accepted, and that is a problem. The school of Ecology is designed to demand technologies that are coming up, understand the implications, check how best they can be used, and why they should be rejected.
Dr Bassey further urges the government to examine what is good critically, address issues that are against our interests, and take responsibility. “The first thing is for the government to wake up to its responsibilities and ensure that harmful technologies don’t come into Nigeria because once the government allows them to come in, it’s difficult to stop people from using it because people have lots of reasons why they are accepting it,”
The CSO groups argued that with such technology, African countries will continue to experience hunger and food shortages as farmers will no longer be able to preserve seeds for planting. They caution against genetically modified crops and organisms, arguing that they threaten Africa’s traditional food systems.
They also stated that planting trees is not a solution to climate change and that such trees do not represent the natural biodiversity of the environment before they were destroyed.
Tools for assessing techniques are assembled into a system and sustained over time, often in physical form; government and policymakers should know the importance of constantly proving new technologies before adopting them.
