FEAR, CONCERN AND COLLAPSE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TOOLS: PERSPECTIVES OF AN ACADEMIA

FEAR, CONCERN AND COLLAPSE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TOOLS: PERSPECTIVES OF AN ACADEMIA

By

Azeez ADEOYE, Ph.D. 

Wizard Librarian,

adeoyeazeezphd@gmail.com, azeez.adeoye@fuhsi.edu.ng 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the buzzword in all human settings in this era — education, hospital, agriculture, transportation, economics, and politics, among others. AI has been in the literature since 1956, and it is more than just a buzzword. In 2025, we now have first‑hand usage of AI in all human activities. AI is a thinking machine — the ability to make machines reason and think like humans. Any device that exhibits this trait is called an AI tool.

All conferences, workshops, forums, gatherings, and sessions of intellectuals, technocrats, politicians, and professionals in all walks of life affix AI in their themes, subthemes, and topics of discussion. In gatherings of scholars across Nigeria, the discussion of the use of AI in the education sector is non-stop — with issues, highlights, and concerns raised.

University students should learn through traditional methods of teaching and not depend wholeheartedly on AI chatbots. This view arose from the attitude of university students towards AI — many, if not all, see AI’s results as final, indisputable, or “always correct.” Some students view AI as a “know-it-all gadget” that can do no wrong or make mistakes. Furthermore, many are impatient to read through the results and are mentally lazy when interpreting them before submitting their assignments or term papers — even when writing their final year projects, long essays, dissertations, or theses.

Technology is not a bad invention, but the inability to be human after its adoption and use is what is challenging human existence. Young adults see technology as demi-gods and adore AI without employing critical thinking. Despite their digital nativeness, there is a lack of skills to critically interrogate AI tools and decipher their output or results. Dogmatically believing in AI’s output dampens their human ability to reason. Truly, they are digital natives, and this may make them believe that all information generated by AI is genuine and authentic. While their lecturers are digital immigrants — who learn through traditional brick-and-mortar education, employing extensive reading and deep reflection to arrive at answers — the digital native, with the emergence and use of AI chatbots, simply obtains seemingly correct answers without needing to think through them. However, many young adults do not know that AI is prone to error, stemming from the large language models (LLM) upon which it operates. Therefore, there is a greater need for critical digital literacy skills — now more than ever.

While students need reorientation on the use of AI tools, lecturers, too, must appreciate the new era we are in. They should upskill, learn, unlearn, relearn, and become proficient in the use of AI tools. All lecturers are no longer gatekeepers of knowledge, but guides or facilitators in the teaching-learning process. They must be five steps ahead of their students in their use of AI — employing their ability to manoeuvre, adding skills up their sleeves, and outsmarting their students instead of the reverse. This will enable lecturers to engage students, foster interactive conversations, and guarantee that learning actually takes place.

To this end, there is an urgent need to reassess the modes of grading, scoring, rewarding, and assessing student performance and the final class of degree. The traditional method — submitting assignments, sitting exams, and turning in term papers — is now under threat by AI chatbots. Student intelligence cannot be measured by scores on papers or exams. Educational psychologists have long advocated for a view that our formal education system is not the true test of intelligence, and this is further demonstrated by the advent of AI tools, which aid or enable students in their submissions. Therefore, it is high time academia considers new ways to truly examine student mastery of concepts, thoughts, skills, and understanding of subject matter.

This is also related to letting students understand what their lecturers want. Attending class or going to school is not just about amassing wealth; it is about gaining a fundamental knowledge of the concept. Many students do not wish to go through the rigorous process of learning but simply want to achieve good grades and graduate. The emergence of AI tools worsens the situation — making students believe that, with the click of a button, their good grades and graduation are assured. Lecturers should let students know that knowledge is not about making money; true knowledge involves lifelong learning and solving human problems, thereby making life better for all.

What is the fate of Africa in the emergence of AI? Who are the players, and what is happening behind the scenes with the growing hype surrounding its adoption across sectors? What happens to Africa’s indigenous languages, knowledge, and culture in the process? What are the ethical issues surrounding the use of AI in Africa? What is the data centre ecosystem’s impact? How can misinformation and disinformation stemming from AI’s output be addressed? What happens when a data centre crashes and collapses? These are pertinent questions that demand deep thought, inquiry, and a wake-up call to reality.

The Global North are the key players in the invention, evolution, adoption, and control of AI tools, while the continent of Africa is left to follow and play a game of catch-up. Africa needs to break away from following the dictates of the West. We must develop our own systems of informal education and grow them alongside this technology, mending and addressing problems as we go forward. Africa cannot continue to be a secondary recipient or a victim of the West — a phenomenon many scholars view as a passport to a new form of colonisation.

Behind the scenes of AI’s growing popularity and adoption in many sectors, some giant players are cashing in with large profits — draining our financial resources. If an application is free, then the users are the price. A massive invention like AI cannot be free; although there are updated versions with a subscription base, the free version also involves hidden charges — directly or indirectly. Africa, as a continent, needs to wake up and smell the coffee.

In all these cases, where the results of prompts are generated by large language models, the content of Africa is missing. Who is telling our stories? Who is writing our history? The use of AI further displaces and dis-Africanises future generations. Digital natives who passively view the output of AI as the ultimate or final answer will undermine their understanding. Therefore, there is a need for the active involvement of African scholars in developing content for large language models — the kind that speaks our own language with true meaning and proper translations. Our indigenous knowledge, language, and culture are being eroded with the advent of AI, and without active involvement, the very identity of Africa may become extinct.

The issue of ethics in the use of AI in Africa is still not sufficiently addressed. Who is responsible for the intellectual capital and intellectual property used in training these machines? What about the related issues of copyright, censorship of information, moral rights, and the disinformation stemming from their output? All these raise significant ethical, social, cultural, moral, and racial problems with the emergency, adoption, and use of AI tools. How prepared are we to challenge all these?

Is AI here to stay? Some scholars are envisaging the collapse of AI due to the mechanisms behind its functionality — for instance, the immense amount of data, water, labor, and electricity it consume to generate its output. As a matter of fact, just five prompts consume nearly 1 litre of treated water, alongside labor, electricity, and data subscriptions. Is this sustainable? How realistic is the continued success of AI in decades to come? Obviously, we have not yet fully realised its impact on our humanness, but we should be prepared to experience many more unprecedented outcomes stemming from its inventions and impacts.