The new technological nightmare

In mid-2022, a new technology based on artificial intelligence came into the market and into the public consciousness. It is generative artificial intelligence. 

For those familiar with search engines like Yahoo! and Google, it works much like them.
You type a description into a task bar stating what image one wishes the programme to draw, the way you enter a search inquiry into Google.

The description can be anything, for example “a Ugandan village with children playing” or “a man riding a bicycle”.

In less than a minute, the programme brings up a picture that looks like a painting.
The difference between the art generator and, say, Google Images, is that while Google Images retrieves actual, existent photos, programmes like DALL-E create new images, some of them fantastical.

For example, you can ask it to create an image of a dog reparing a car or a group of friends having a drink on the moon, and it does that.

Another one, called ChatGPT, does the same thing but this time produce not images but text documents. 

So, one asks it to write a letter applying for a passport, or to describe Jinja town, or a fire at a market in Soroti. In less than a minute, the document is produced. 

This AI technology is going to get better in 2023 and, tragically, will put hundreds of artists out of business, the way the desktop computer made the typewriter obsolete.

While the image-based DALL-E will be of use to book and newspaper illustrators and many casual users doing it for fun, ChatGPT is much more serious and its potential more frightening.

Modern society works around documents: Land titles, birth certificates, business licences, media press releases, legal notices, letters of administration, contracts, insurance policies, medical certificates, product standards inspection certificates, marriage certificates, and many more.The implications are staggering. 

A whole new level of fraud and forgery is going to wreck havoc on society. This being Uganda, the first place we are going to see it employed will be, of course, at our universities.

Students will cheat at their coursework, Masters and PhD theses, homework, and other written assignments using this technology.  Just think of the headache that awaits the educational establishment.

Universities and high schools will need to give their teachers and lecturers crash training on these new technologies in order for them to be able to detect fraud in coursework, or recruit a new crop of tech-savvy lecturers.

From another point of view, some parents will start to wonder: Why should they send their children to expensive schools, when by sitting at home on a laptop or computer tablet, a child can generate in a minute homework that feels like it’s from an international school?

Lawyers, magistrates, High Court judges, police CID officers and others will also come face-to-face with forgery on a massive new scale and will need to be brought up to speed with these new applications to be able to detect fraud.

Think of the opportunity for disinformation that this will give social media platforms.
Letters and press releases purporting to be from business corporations, government ministries, suppliers, and all sorts of conmen will flood the online world.

A few of us newspaper columnists when once in a while are faced with a writer’s block and can’t think of a topic to write, will turn to ChatGPT, instruct it to write a 700-word column, and behold in one minute, it’s ready to email to the editor. (That would be fun!)

Now, more than ever, the role of an editor will move from being important to being absolutely crucial.
The editor, lawyer, CID officer, accountant, intelligence officer, auditor, and insurance broker of the near future will need to have some forensic training or skill, to be able to spot text generated by these artificial intelligence chatbots.

With computer-generated documents via ChatGPT now the new reality, Gen. Saleh’s note to Erias Lukwago might be the way to go.

We shall all be forced to return to handwritten letters, notes, university coursework, wills, letters of administration, and press releases.Then there is the sinister side 

Imagine a subversive group produces a seemingly authentic letter, say from a head of state, insulting the Kabaka of Buganda or announcing the arrest of a popular opposition leader.
Imagine ChatGPT in the hands of Nigeria’s notorious online fraudsters. 
Or ChatGPT in India, with its track record of religious communal violence.

Or in countries like Burundi and Rwanda with ethnic faultlines and a history of genocide, think what would happen if letters inciting the Hutu and Tutsi against each other, and these letters appear on official government letter head.

Think of ChatGPT in South Sudan, a country always one incident away from clashes between rival factions of the SPLA.

This is a question that must be faced head-on in 2023.
On a positive note, even though the positive is far outweighed by the negative, there will be an urgent new demand for creativity and authenticity.

There will be a flood of AI-generated music, pictures, artwork, forged documents, social media posts, and more.

The first thought in many people’s minds will be: How can I know if this is genuine?
There will be more work for lawyers to authenticate documents.

But this, in turn, will require lawyers and insurance brokers, among others, to be trained to detect AI-generated forgery.

Just think of how much time will be wasted in re-examining everything, in calling in experts to verify documents.

Think of rural Uganda and Africa and the amount of land-grabbing and swindling of unsuspecting businesses and farmers of their assets that will go on in this new climate of AI-generated crime.

This AI technology is going to do damage we can’t yet foresee.
A nightmare awaits us.

The future 
Modern society works around documents: Land titles, birth certificates, business licences, media press releases, legal notices, letters of administration, contracts, insurance policies, medical certificates, product standards inspection certificates,marriage certificates, and many more.