Prof. Marwala elucidates the benefits behind the application of Artificial Intelligent

07-08-2019

Prof Tshilidzi Marwala the Vice Chancellor of the University of Johannesburg in South Africa called on University of Rwanda (UR) community to start applying Artificial Intelligence-AI in their work in order to cope up with the Fourth Industrial Revolution-4IR which globally drive all economies. The call was made during a public lecture that took place on 6th August, 2019 at University of Rwanda College of Science and Technology.

AI is a technology where one gives machines the thinking capacity as human beings and perform activities as people do. This type of technology can work 24 hours without getting tired.

In the course of the lecture, Marwala noted that Artificial Intelligence is multidiscipline through which students from various fields are invited to perform their tasks using this technology for equaling the demands of the fourth Industrial Revolution. According to him, the use of IA would advance not only science areas but also other fields including linguistic, agriculture among others.

Prof. Marwala during the lecture on Artificial Intelligence

“I wish to see UR students taking Artificial Intelligence as a vital tool for their success ; the new technology can be applicable to all parts of economic life” Marwala said while encouraging deep specialization and training in building machines ready to supplement human efforts and provide good production at the same time.

Marwala dismissed some of the concerns that Artificial Intelligent can be very harmful to ecosystem. He informed that if at all the danger could happen, it would come from human beings who are controlling it. He pointed out that people are the one who decide how robots would behave depending on assigned tasks.

A section of students and staff who attended the lecture

Moreover, Marwala shared few example of Artificial Intelligent as tool to perform difficult tasks. The case in point is in medicine where AI can be able to identify first patient who is more painful than others to be served. It can equally be used in IT security by detecting cyber hackers among others.

Apart from public lecture, Prof Tshilidzi Marwala with his delegation visited University of Rwanda on August 5th, 2019 where he signed a memorandum of understanding between the University of Rwanda and University of Johannesburg.


Story by
Gerard Kankiriho
An intern from UR School of Journalism and Communication