Accra: Professor Isaac Wiafe, a computer scientist, has advised the Government to support research institutions to develop local-content data infrastructure that underpins an all-inclusive AI ecosystem in Ghana. He said cultivating high-quality datasets in local languages for education, health, agriculture, and other spheres of socio-economic endeavor was necessary, given the current composition of the National AI Strategy.
According to Ghana News Agency, the current lack of local content in Ghana's National AI Strategy is not a minor technical gap; it is one of the most pressing barriers to making AI relevant to the needs of the people. Prof. Wiafe noted this at an inaugural lecture in Accra, where he spoke on the topic, 'Why AI is Irrelevant to Ghana: Reclaiming our Future through Human-Centred Transformation.' The event was organized by the University of Ghana (UG) and drew on emerging evidence from studies on technology adoption, digital inclusion, and AI awareness.
Over the years, the Professor of Information Technology and Lead Investigator at UG's Human-Computer Interaction Lab has focused on designing intelligent technologies that make AI work in low-resource environments. He emphasized that AI becomes relevant to society only when it improves the daily lives of ordinary Ghanaians. Prof. Wiafe expressed concern over the declining functional use of local languages in the country, warning of dire consequences if the trend continued.
He cautioned that if Ghanaian languages are absent from schools, weak in books, and limited in public administration, it becomes extremely difficult and expensive to build AI systems that understand Ghanaian lives. The computer scientist called for a local-language policy to support efforts to build AI tools that reflected the needs of the people, stating that AI cannot learn what society does, or preserve what we do, unless it is provided.
The lecture argued that, in its current form and trajectory, AI offers limited value to the country's development aspirations. This is not because the technology lacks potential, but because the dominant AI discourse is shaped by external priorities, foreign datasets, imported assumptions, and technological solutions that are often disconnected from Ghana's socio-economic realities. Prof. Wiafe warned that the current AI ecosystem risked creating a new form of digital dependency at scale, potentially contributing to cultural homogenization, marginalizing indigenous knowledge, reinforcing existing inequalities, and weakening local innovation ecosystems.
In his recommendations, the computer scientist urged technocrats to work together to build transformational AI models that place human development, cultural preservation, technological sovereignty, and societal well-being at their core. Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, who chaired the occasion, lauded Prof. Wiafe for his strides in academia, especially in anchoring the Computer Science Department to nurture solution-based technologies. Spanning artificial intelligence, persuasive technologies, speech and language technologies, and human-centered computing, the Vice-Chancellor noted the scientist had distinguished himself in serving humanity.