Director of Corporate Engagement at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) Gervasius Nashilongo, while encouraging the use of artificial intelligence (AI), has warned against the overreliance on technology at the expense of human creativity and brand authenticity.
Nashilongo cautions against misinformation, urging Namibians to supervise AI-generated content before publishing it as it can generate false information.
“There is Jasper, ChatGPT, Google Translate and others that could write for you but they do not necessarily reflect your brand and adopt the tone of your institution. Let it save your time, but you must still do the work. Make sure there is context presented,” she says.
She urges the public to avoid over trusting AI with critical information.
She emphasises the importance of using tools that support African or multilingual languages.
“AI is not a replacement for communication but a tool to make connections more human, faster and smarter, but only if guided ethically, with a local lens,” she says.
She notes that while AI is already being used in various sectors such as education, health, agriculture, and labour, Namibia still faces challenges, including bias in data and understanding of local idioms which may not be accessible to all artificial intelligence language models.
“There is a need for us to train the data,” she said, referring to the NUST computer science faculty that trains on data systems.
“Work is going in there on machine learning,” she says.
She mentioned current trends where real time public service announcements in multiple languages could become a reality. However, she explained that it will require a lot of training of large language models to be able to speak to the local context.
