While headlines worldwide warn of growing threats to humanity from rogue AI agents and those using it as a means to harm others, youth development organisation Afrika Tikkun cautions about the risks of a young generation using AI without a firm moral compass to guide them.
“Our children and youth are learning to prompt AI before they have learned to question it,” says Marc Lubner, Executive Chairperson and Group CEO of Afrika Tikkun. “This is not a skills gap, it’s a judgement gap that needs to be closed.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa raised the same concerns speaking at the BRICS Summit recently, saying AI has the potential to usher in a new era of productivity and human progress, and if used responsibly can help reduce inequality, poverty and underdevelopment.
Ramaphosa also highlighted AI industry concerns about systems capable of helping develop biological weapons, autonomous action, manipulation, and the disruption of employment, saying society must never reach a situation where technological capability has moved beyond our capacity to understand it, supervise it and control it.
While the NPO embraces and values the advancement that AI can bring, Afrika Tikkun strongly believes that it’s not enough to only teach young people how to use AI. “We have to help them develop a strong moral skill set, so they know how to use AI responsibly.”
“This means inculcating principled judgement, ethical practice, morals and values from a young age. These things can’t be taught as a short-term, crash course module for young adults; they are formed like character is, over years. There’s an onus on us to establish a strong humane element in the way we teach interaction with AI. Young people armed with this powerful AI toolkit need to be taught that the wide capability this gives them requires a moral judgement on its use. This is critical for the use of AI for the greater good.”
At the coalface in township communities, Afrika Tikkun’s foundational philosophy is reflected in its Cradle to Career model which advances the belief that sustained long-term intervention is the best way to equip people to cope with the challenges that work, family, and life throw at them. “While a school has a child for a few hours a day, for a few years, at Afrika Tikkun we work with a child from early childhood to when they find work.
“We know that judgement, ethics and values can’t be meaningfully taught in a module. They are formed as part of one’s character, over years of development,” said Lubner. “It makes sense that pairing moral education and ethical practice with skills training instils the values critical for the responsible use of AI.”
Lubner warns that a generation with enormous capability and no framework for using it results in young people who cannot tell truth from fabrication, who outsource their thinking before they have learned to think, and who are easy to manipulate. “AI ethics is not a new subject; it is the same lesson applied to a new power. We treat it as a moral, ethical and digital citizenship question, not just a digital skills course. Good judgement is learned through dilemmas, debate, scenarios, and role play and not just by reading a policy.”
Lubner says that Afrika Tikkun teaches AI use within a core values framework. These include the principle of honesty and never passing off AI work as one’s own thinking or using it to deceive.
“We teach good judgement in knowing when to trust an output, when to check it, and being able to admit uncertainty about it at times. We teach responsibility, in that we expect our people to own what they produce in collaboration with an AI tool, because the tool never will,” says Lubner.
Lastly, Afrika Tikkun believes that AI must be used with the utmost respect for others, meaning it must never be used to harm, mock, exclude or manipulate another person.
Lubner is issuing a call to action to others working with children and the youth to also commit to focusing on instilling the moral integrity needed to make the right decisions around AI use, meeting its challenges and prospects with a firm resolve in what’s right.
“In a country where inequality is at the very core of our society, government, educators, industry leaders and the private sector must do everything possible to ensure inequality and injustice are not the result of an AI used for nefarious gains. Instead, like us, those who can must guide the youth on the use of AI, to harness the best outcomes for all humanity.”
