Professor Afolashade Kuyoro has reassured Nigerians that artificial intelligence (AI) is not an immediate threat to jobs, stressing its growing role as a partner in human imagination and innovation.
Professor Kuyoro who was delivering the Babcock University's 60th Inaugural Lecture titled “From Data to Imagination: The Next Frontier of Intelligent Systems”,
explained AI’s evolution from data-driven prediction and classification to generative models capable of creating new content, simulations, and innovations.
“Intelligence is no longer driven by data alone, but also by imagination,” she noted.
Professor Kuyoro highlighted imagination as humanity’s most precious faculty, stressing that machines are beginning to attain it.
She urged collaboration between humans and AI, positioning technology as a complement to human creativity rather than a replacement.
Addressing ethical concerns, she called for transparency, fairness, safety, authorship accountability, and digital truth in AI development.
To prepare for this future, she gave an eight-point recommendation including the establishment of a Babcock University Center for Imaginative Intelligence, introduction of AI literacy programs, strengthening of research collaborations as well as the creation of a strong institutional framework for the ethical use of AI and an AI-driven Smart Campus Initiative Development.
“Our University will become a living laboratory equipped with technologies such as predictive maintenance, intelligent security, student learning analytics and energy and resource optimization,” she said.
The lecture concluded with a powerful message: imagination will be the most valued skill driving civilization and governance.
Professor Kuyoro emphasized that humans must guide AI with ethics to ensure technology serves humanity’s best interests.
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