I was invited to give a talk at Gitex Africa covering some of the current state of AI research, and its relevance for the tech world. It was my first ever public talk in Morocco, and also my first one in Africa. There are several things I’ll take away with me from this experience. Here are some of them, in no particular order. Full talk is available on Youtube.
I had originally planned to title my talk “The Struggles of AI with Bias, Generalization and Safety, and the responsibility of Africa to make itself heard”. I was planning to give an overview of these important AI issues, why they are especially relevant for the African continent, and why people in the room I was speaking in, who are essentially building Africa, should care about these and act upon them.
As I was making progress with the talk preparation, I was getting more and more frustrated with my title, and the message I was communicating. My title and presentation perpetuated a “West vs Africa” kind of narrative - “Us vs them”. I feel more and more uncomfortable with this narrative.
Wherever we are, whoever we are, we should just talk about the science, about what works or doesn’t work, and what needs to be done - at a global scale. Good work is a universal concept, without borders, and without nationality. Of course, context and application change from community to community - but particularly when it comes to humanity altering technologies like AI, the discourse must simply be a human one.
This is why I renamed my talk: “The Struggles of AI with Bias, Generalization and Safety, a global human challenge”.
It was incredibly inspiring for me to see tens of thousands of people, from all backgrounds, from many different countries, being excited about the things exhibited during this massive event. After my talk, many people students and recent graduates, passionate about the technology, came to ask me the good moves to do in the space, sharing their project ideas, and just wanting to connect over their love for the tech. This was humbling for me - a priviledge to be in a position where I felt like I - even slightly - inspired others to keep pushing and doing good.
There is something happening in the continent, a strange cocktail of effervescence, money and almost-blank slate. Effervescence because of the youth, energy, and the land of opportunity that even the blind can see. Almost-blank slate because of the infancy of this phase. And money because it feels like there is more money ready to be invested than start-ups to invest the money into - and that’s a bit of a crazy thing.
What is still critically missing in Africa are globalist and competent individuals - who can resist greed, and slowly take an idea to a functional project, and most importantly, who stop caring about the fact that they are building for Africa, and just focus on building for humans.
A Ghanaian friend - let’s call him Kevin - told me during the conference that looking as young as he does was a challenge for his work in Africa: “People see me and wonder ‘who the fuck is this kid?’ and that makes it harder for me to be taken seriously.” Kevin is 37, and appears to be in his late twenties/early thirties - not an immature age by all standards I think? Why is it a bad thing to look young for business in Africa? Why does a 30 year feel like they are not taken seriously because of their young age?
This somewhat aligns with the overly-dressed and overly-serious average person at the conference. Many of the speakers and panelists spoke in suits, and did not dear to crack a single joke during their interventions. Despite all the energy and passion on what they were talking about, people don’t allow themselves to do humour or show youthfulness - the African work-culture perceives it as unprofessional and child-like.
My own father
Now I have two options here - either I abide to this ethos where only overly-serious, overly-dressed people are deemed professional, or continue “looking like the student in town” for most professionals in the continent - i.e. focusing on getting more competent, doing good work, and most importantly, having fun along the way.
I’m sure you can guess what I’ll be going going with.
What annoyed me a lot about my father saying that I “looked like the student in town”, is that I was one of the few speakers that had a slight idea of what they were talking about.
I can say without a doubt that the vast majority of speakers had never written a single line of code in their life. Let aside explaining what backpropagation - the backbone of the entirety of modern ML - consists of.
While it is certain that knowing to code is not a pre-requisite to have an opinion or even a public voice on AI, it surely helps avoiding bullshit.
Let me tell you one of my favourite story of the event:
I was moderating a discussion with Lola and Jeremy, two kind souls who work on topics related to the financial sector in Nigeria and Ghana, and whose work involve thinking through digitalization and “AI-transition” of the financial sector. At the end of their discussion, we opened questions to the public, and this man takes the microphone proudly
If you are out there publicly pushing a “revolutionary technology”, at least make sure you can explain what it consists of to someone’s who’s in the field. This really was ridiculous.
While this story is particularly bad, the whole event gave parole to a high number of such people who talk significantly more than they know, and surf the AI wave without knowing what it really entails. So yes, many of them would benefit from spending a few minutes trying to learn how to write a few lines of code. Please don’t get me wrong, there were loads of great engineers doing great work, as well as many people who were not tech-savvy, but at least had the humility of admitting when they didn’t know something, and didn’t try to bullshit people to their own advantage.
Like in the US, the attitude of talking more than one actually does and knows is deeply embedded in the Moroccan professional ethos (I cannot generalize to the rest of the contient as I know too little about other countries’ cultures), and I really hate it more and more.
Today, I hold a particular contempt for people who talk more than they know, and also take advantage of the work of other people to push their own agenda in the process. Indeed, many people at the event were “passionate”
Well - this feels familiar, doesn’t it? Careless, sloppy and greedy people exploiting lack of education and powerlessness around them? Looks like there is no escaping this, and so even in a continent whose resources and people have been continously exploited by simiarly careless, sloppy and greedy people in the past. Are we going to let that happen again, this time by our own people to our own people?
I should have called them out for their bullshit in front of everyone in the room. We shouldn’t tolerate bullshiting the public. We shouldn’t normalize ignorant people pushing their sloppy agendas, we shouldn’t normalize arrogant-bullshiters. There is serious danger with arrogant-bullshiters.
I have been getting my haircuts at the same Salon for about 5 years now, and come pretty much every time I’m in Morocco (~ 3 times a year). My brother also goes to this salon, but to a different hairdresser than mine. I know some other people in my family also go to the same salon, but not the same hairdresser as mine either - but I didn’t know which one.
This time, my usual hairdresser was not around, so I randomly went with another one who was free when I arrived, whom had never cut my hair, and whom I had never spoken to.
He greets me, and directly asks me whether I’m the brother of “Ismail” (my brother). Yes I am. In the next 5 minutes, he asks me about 4 of my uncles, and 6 of my cousins, whom he all calls by name. He asks me about my father (also calls him by name), whom, as he said, is the only one in the brotherhood who doesn’t go to him. Yes, he knew my father’s name, eventhoug my father doesn’t even go to get his haircut there.
My favourite part of the conversation was when he told me that my cousin H. was there a couple days ago and told him that “a new client was on the way for him!” (i.e. his wife is pregnant with a boy). And yeah, that’s how I learnt that my cousin was expecting a child - through my hairdresser.
Ten minutes into a Taxi ride in Marrakesh, the taxi driver stops somewhere and asks me whether he can use my phone to make a call
While he did take me to the place, he had the audacity to complain about the price I had agreed upon with the previous driver. WTF.