artificial intelligence - The African Mirror

Mar

2023

ChatGPT is the push higher education needs to rethink assessment

SIOUX MCKENNA, DAN DIXON, DANIEL OPPENHEIMER, MARGARET BLACKIE and SAM ILLINGWORTH THE COVID-19 pandemic was a shock to higher education systems everywhere. But while some changes, like moving lectures online, were relatively easy to make, assessment posed a much bigger challenge. Assessment can take many forms, from essays to exams to experiments and more. Many institutions and individual academics essentially outsourced the assessment process to software. They increased their use of programs like Turnitin to check for matched wording in students’ assignments. And for closed-book, timed tests they used tools such as Proctorio, which monitors a student’s computer or phone…

Feb

2023

By The African Mirror

We pitted ChatGPT against tools for detecting AI-written text, and the results are troubling

SCIENCE, TECH AND INNOVATION

AS the “chatbot wars” rage in Silicon Valley, the growing proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) tools specifically designed to generate human-like text has left many baffled. Educators in particular are scrambling to adjust to the availability of software that can produce a moderately competent essay on any topic at a moment’s notice. Should we go back to pen-and-paper assessments? Increasing exam supervision? Ban the use of AI entirely? Authors ARMIN ALIMARDANI, Lecturer, University of Wollongong EMMA A. JANE, Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney All these and more have been proposed. However, none of these less-than-ideal measures would be needed if educators…

Feb

2023

By The African Mirror

ChatGPT: our study shows AI can produce academic papers good enough for journals – just as some ban it

EDUCATION

SOME of the world’s biggest academic journal publishers have banned or curbed their authors from using the advanced chatbot, ChatGPT. Because the bot uses information from the internet to produce highly readable answers to questions, the publishers are worried that inaccurate or plagiarised work could enter the pages of academic literature. Authors BRIAN LUCEY, Professor of International Finance and Commodities, Trinity College Dublin MICHAEL DOWLING, Professor of Finance, Dublin City University Several researchers have already listed the chatbot as a co-author on academic studies, and some publishers have moved to ban this practice. But the editor-in-chief of Science, one of…

Jan

2023

By The African Mirror

Artificial intelligence in South Africa comes with special dilemmas – plus the usual risks

SCIENCE, TECH AND INNOVATION

WHEN people think about artificial intelligence (AI), they may have visions of the future. But AI is already here. At its base, it is the recreation of aspects of human intelligence in computerised form. Like human intelligence, it has wide applications. Voice-operated personal assistants like Siri, self-driving cars, and text and image generators all use AI. It also curates our social media feeds. It helps companies to detect fraud and hire employees. It’s used to manage livestock, enhance crop yields and aid medical diagnoses. Author EMILE ORMOND, PhD candidate, University of South Africa Alongside its growing power and its potential,…

Jan

2023

By The African Mirror

Nigerian artist uses AI to re-imagine life for the elderly

NEWS

ANGELA UKOMADU A Nigerian artist is using artificial intelligence to re-imagine life for African elderly people by showcasing near real-life pictures and videos of them walking down the fashion ramp and on the beach. Malik Afegbua, who is also a filmmaker, said because many elderly people were marginalised in society, especially in the fashion world, he began to imagine how they would look if they were models. Afegbua started posting some of his work on social media and it went viral. He came up with "Elders Series", a catalogue of pictures and videos showing white-haired women and bearded men strutting…

Jun

2021

By The African Mirror

AI is watching: What to know about workplace surveillance

SCIENCE, TECH AND INNOVATION

ARTHUR NESLEN FROM Swedish retailer H&M being fined 35 million euros ($42 million) for recording employees' private data to Britain's Barclays bank accused of spying on its staff, workplace surveillance has come into the spotlight in recent months. On Wednesday, the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), the European Trade Union Confederation's research arm, said planned regulation by the European Union (EU) to improve privacy does not do enough to stop companies from snooping on their workers in the name of security and efficiency. As artificial intelligence (AI) technology becomes ever more accessible and sophisticated, here's why unions are worried: What kind of surveillance are we…

Jun

2021

By The African Mirror

“Mama Robotics” wows a nation

NEWS

DORCAS BELLO 18-YEAR-OLD artificial intelligence whizz Mercy Sampson's robotics prototypes have wowed Nigeria. Now she wants Africa to focus on artificial intelligence and the opportunities provided by the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). But she also has a personal point to prove. She's a deaf person living in a country where that is a problem. As a young deaf girl living in a country that provides very little support for those with disabilities, Mercy Sampson seemed likely to grow up destitute. Now 18, the teen, who lost her auditory ability at 3, is having none of that. “When people see the…

Jun

2021

By The African Mirror

AI is taking over job hiring, but can it be racist?

SCIENCE, TECH AND INNOVATION

AVI ASHER-SCHAPIRO SINCE graduating from a U.S. university four years ago, Kevin Carballo has lost count of the number of times he has applied for a job only to receive a swift, automated rejection email - sometimes just hours after applying. Like many job seekers around the world, Carballo's applications are increasingly being screened by algorithms built to automatically flag attractive applicants to hiring managers. "There's no way to apply for a job these days without being analyzed by some sort of automated system," said Carballo, 27, who is Latino and the first member of his family to go to…

Apr

2021

By The African Mirror

‘China could rule world’s technology’

WORLD

GUY FAULCONBRIDGE THE West must urgently act to ensure China does not dominate important emerging technologies and gain control of the "global operating system", Britain's top cyber spy said on Friday. In an unusually blunt speech, Jeremy Fleming, director of the GCHQ spy agency, said the West faced a battle for control of technologies such as artificial intelligence, synthetic biology and genetics. "Significant technology leadership is moving East," Fleming said at Imperial College London. "The concern is that China's size and technological weight means that it has the potential to control the global operating system." "We are now facing a…

Mar

2021

By The African Mirror

Small-scale fishermen turn to apps and AI to tackle climate change

SCIENCE, TECH AND INNOVATION

MICHAEL TAYLOR FROM weather-predicting apps to using artificial intelligence to monitor the fish they catch, small-scale fishermen and coastal communities are increasingly turning to digital tools to help them be more sustainable and tackle climate change. Overfishing and illegal fishing by commercial vessels inflict significant damage on fisheries and the environment, and take food and jobs from millions of people in coastal communities who rely on fishing, environmental groups say. In addition, climate change affects small-scale fishermen - who account for about 90% of the world's capture fishermen and fish workers - include fish moving to new areas in search of cooler…