Although the term Artificial Intelligence (AI) was coined by John Mc Carthy in 1956 and AI research has been ongoing since, it is only recent that with supersonic advancement in the field, it has got all and sundry talking.

During a two-day meeting organised by the All Africa Council of Churches (AACC) and the Future of Life Institute, a US-based organisation that works to reduce extreme risks of transformative technologies, selected religious leaders were introduced to the impact of Al on African societies, it’s ethical concerns and the role of religious leaders in it’s governance.

The two-day meeting, which was held in Nairobi, Kenya, in July 2025, was able to appreciate the good about AI, which is revolutionising education, health, engineering, agriculture, business, theology and all fields of human endeavour.

The era of Al has introduced a new concept of the ability of machines to learn, reason and make decisions. This development is associated with execution of tasks with more precision than humans and results in higher productivity. The wide range of man’s needs can, therefore, be achieved.

With Al, medical surgery will become much easier for complex medical operations, requiring shorter time, and fewer medical personnel.

As regards theology, it is now easier to instruct Chat GTP, an Al software developed by Open Al, to write a sermon on a text of choice prescribing the duration and describing the congregation, whether for African Americans or Africans. At the pressing of a key pad, you get a machine-created sermon.

Nevertheless, there are several spin off effects that show the projected bad consequences of AI. The over reliance on machines is projected to lead to a loss of about thirty million jobs in 2026. There is a growing fear of the manipulation of Al to cause disruption in social harmony.

The recent US election was heavily influenced by Al through social media, whereby some companies set algorithms that denigrated particular candidates while hyping others.

A case scenario was given at the July conference where a major fraud was pulled off in Europe, where hackers used AI photo generator to create realistic photos and videos imitating “Board members” of a bank, who were invited to an urgent virtual meeting to approve a mega transaction.

The use of Al Software has been taken to another level, where machines are replacing humans in solving social-psychological issues. It is surprising that research conducted this year revealed that the first three highly ranked uses of Al were related to addressing the loneliness epidemic that is hitting most of the Western World.

The three uses of Al were seeking therapy and companionship; organising of one’s life and healthy living. Isn’t this an indicator that what Al is trying to mainly address can best be addressed by humans? Can a machine provide qualitative social- psychological counselling better than humans?

The replacement of humans with machines is projected to cause even more dire consequences with the upscaling of AI to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

The cut-throat competition in the industry is expected by 2027 to have produced machines that are superior to humans in intelligence and will be self-directed.

The ugly side of Al is bound to cause catalysmic reactions, for example, in areas of, say, climate change, bio-war fare where automated machines may trigger dangerous commands, whose consequences may be akin to those of Schwazneger in the Terminator movie.

African religious leaders and all right-thinking members of society are called upon to appeal to governments and trans-national organisations to curtail powers of AI companies from fast-tracking developments that may have adverse effect on humanity.

Why shouldn’t AI be designed to address needs of man but instead be equipped and facilitated to upstage man and be self directed with possible dire consequences? Why should powerful organisations like the United Nations play second fiddle to private companies that are competing to out-smart each other in AI instead of being regulated, since in the process, the world runs the risk of self-destruction?

Source: Daily Monitor