Nigeria's Regulatory Environment for ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
News of the National AI Policy signals Nigeria's readiness to join the global AI development, deployment, and operations conversation, but how prepared is our legal environment for mainstream AI?
Artificial intelligence has monumentally changed business conduct, and what “productivity” and “efficiency” connote. From the introduction of Chat GPT to ongoing generative AI, large language models, and machine learning innovations, the world of business, research, and analytics is no longer the same. These innovations highlight the inadequacy of present laws to combat the challenges that come with them.
Jurisdictions like the European Union are attempting to regulate the artificial intelligence industry with proposed laws like the EU Artificial Intelligence Act. States within the United States of America are also making efforts to enact regulatory policies. These efforts are being made because as beneficial as AI has been, it also poses threats to data privacy, raises ethical dilemmas, issues of algorithmic bias, and intellectual property infringement, among others.
On the African continent, Nigeria boasts an array of progressive laws on par with global tech development and regulation standards. Through the Nigerian Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Nigeria (from 2017 to date) has released the Data Protection Act, Cloud Computing Policy, Blockchain Policy, Startup Act, and the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR), etc all geared towards the standardization and regulation of IT practices in Nigeria.
Policy Efforts from 2017 to date
The creation of the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR), in line with the country’s National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy 2020-2030, marked a major moment in Nigeria’s commitment to AI development, especially because AI was noted as a foreign direct investment (FDI) strategy and one of the eight pillars of Nigeria’s digital economy.
In 2021, NCAIR started a program to teach children coding, machine learning, AI, and other emerging tech skills. The National Communications Commission (NCC) also provided AI research grants to tertiary institutions.
In March 2023, the Federal Ministry of Communication, Innovation, and Digital Economy (FMCIDE) with other stakeholders drafted a National AI Policy, alongside other efforts to mainstream AI through research and development schemes. In October 2023, said Ministry also launched the Nigerian Artificial Intelligence Research Scheme (NAIRS), a N225 million grant for 45 AI startups and researchers, and in November 2023, the Fourth Industrial Revolution Technology Application (4IRTA) was launched to support startups applying innovative AI, UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle), Blockchain solutions to the Nigerian agricultural sector.
In November 2023, Nigeria joined 17 other nations in committing to the AI Global Safety Agreement to ensure that AI was created to be secure by design. This 20-page document admonishes companies and relevant stakeholders to design, develop, deploy, and operate AI responsibly to prevent misuse by customers and the wider public. It also signed the Bletchley Declaration on AI, alongside 27 other countries, pledging commitment to AI development with key attention to international collaboration to mitigate risk.
In April 2024, the FMCIDE held an AI Strategy workshop to attract 120 Nigerian experts globally to draft a new national AI strategy document defining the strategic imperatives, policies, investments, implementation roadmap, governance structures, and necessary steps to catalyze Nigeria into an AI-driven economy.
*Bonus
In 2024, the African Union Development Agency published a policy draft with a blueprint of AI regulations for African nations. This draft includes recommendations for industry-specific codes and practices, standards, and certification bodies. These recommendations are directed at assessing and benchmarking AI systems, providing regulatory oversight for the testing of AI, and establishing national AI councils within Africa.
The draft, not expected to be endorsed until 2025, will guide countries on the continent without existing AI policies or regulations and help countries with policies to review their policies.
Current Assessment
Undoubtedly, Nigeria has made giant strides in preparing its regulatory landscape for AI adoption and mainstreaming but according to rankings from the Oxford Insights 2023 AI Readiness assessment - it ranks countries according to 3 key indicators; ‘government readiness (AI strategies)’, ‘the technology sector’, and ‘data and infrastructure’ - Nigeria is placed in the 103rd position among 193 countries globally, and is the 10th among the top 20 African countries. There’s still much to be done before we attain a choice position on these rankings, but thankfully, we are on our way.
Future Aspirations
Globally, AI safety remains a concern but Nigeria is trying to smoothen the integration of AI and technology into our existing systems and framework.
Nigeria is involved in the global discourse on AI, even being listed as a member country in US President Joe Biden’s global coalition on AI, plus all the international policies we are parties to. These efforts are likely to intensify as Dr. Bosu Tijani, Minister for Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, listed Artificial Intelligence as one of the focus areas of the ministry under him. Eventually, the National AI Policy is expected to be redrafted into a binding law, though we are not there yet.
It is unlikely that these efforts or plans by the federal government will be smooth sailing because the country is currently bedeviled by inflation and widespread poverty and may not prioritize AI and tech integration as other first-world countries would but, we have a seat at the global AI table and we are taking advantage of it.
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