Kenya's Educational Crisis in the Age of AI

I've accepted that Kenyan university students don't read, and more than that, they will not read.

I've accepted that students won't write anything that interests anyone, including themselves.

I've accepted that because I don't think the damage of AI to research can be repaired. What I hope for, is that Kenyans would accept that there is a fundamental damage that has happened to the Kenyan mind, and that we have to urgently seek other ways of generating knowledge outside the school system. This is really urgent, because crucial decisions about our food, our health and our security depend on knowledge.

Unfortunately, most of us Kenyans HATE knowledge, partly because the school system destroyed our curiosity. So most of us think that knowledge is irrelevant to us, and our welfare depends on NGOs, and ultimately on wazungu. You will deny it, but I know it to be true because of how I saw CBC and SHIF colonized and contained by donor-funded NGOs.

I've given up on the school system because of AI. What AI has done to Kenya, and maybe to the continent, is pure evil. Kenya was already a country where people hated knowledge and hated the arts, and proudly announced how ignorant they were because they were being "practical." Now imagine, that's how damaged our minds were, and then the tech goons came and told us that AI would change our lives, it would assist us with research, that now we wouldn't have to read as much because the bots would process the readings for us.

I cannot tell you how much damage it has done to students' thinking.

First of all, Kenyans need to realize that if the media says something, no teacher can ever tell the students it's a lie. None. I saw our arts classes reduce to almost zero because NTV and Citizen TV announced every so often that the arts had no market. I produced the data, I made so much noise, but once Trevor Ombija said university degrees were useless, it was the truth.

The irony was that I would ask students in my class if they agreed with Ombija, and they would say yes. Then I would ask them "so why are you here?" And for real, it would take them 10 minutes to get the irony. They would struggle, partly because one thing our school system does so well is wipe out contradiction. In one class, the students tried hard to marry the uselessness of university and their being students, and then it finally clicked for one girl who burst out like the kid in the story of the Emperor's new clothes: "we're here because our parents insist that we be here." And then the flood gates burst. The students started saying they didn't understand why their parents hated university but insisted they must attend. I told them next time they go home, they need to ask you parents.

So imagine that kind of damage was already there, and then this narrative of AI solving problems comes. Wah! It was like pouring oil on fire. Now students have BELIEVED the narrative about AI that was sold by the media. They have believed like faith, I'm telling you. It's Shakahola reloaded. It's a cult. I discussed Mordecai Ogada's article on Chat GPT like for weeks, and I would still get a student telling me that Ogada says that AI is good if used correctly. That was a opinion piece, without citations, and even that, they put it through the AI app and that's what they got. It's unbelieveable.

I have even seen invented sources published by me. Think about it... like really. Someone puts my name in an app, the app spits back some rubbish which it attributes to me, and the student puts it in the assignment and hands it over to me. It's not the dishonesty that shocks me. It's this: what is the student saying about me? What are they telling ME? That I'm dumb wood, an empty debe, or what? And what kind of dehumanization happened to them, for them to do that to me? And what are they saying about themselves? Asking those questions alone makes me understand why people run to the bar.

So this AI problem isn't an honesty problem. It's a dehumanization problem. And I've learned, over the years, that when it comes to matters of the mind, Kenyans don't want to deal. I've noticed that if I mention a book by a foreigner, they'll notice, but they'll notice to either ask me for a copy, or to tell me they learned about it from professor so and so, or to show off that they also read it. They don't care to discuss what I'm saying about the book.

We have to ask what devil decided that Kenyans must never study, never learn, be so proud of it, and then technologize it. This madness haunts me so much, not because of what the students do, but because I know that Kenyans don't care. And that's actually why the students do what they do with AI. They won't be caught. This is such a serious problem, because the doctors who will treat us, the teachers who will teach our children, the people who are responsible for protecting us from pollution and poisoning, all think like this.

AI is from the devil. I don't care what it can do. I already know what it has done.

Credits: Wandia Njoya

Link to original post: https://web.facebook.com/share/p/neQh2HCCZtCD5EfC/