The Vice-President of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has allayed fears that technology or artificial intelligence will take over human jobs and render people jobless, since it was the human that created Omeife and other robots.
Speaking at the inauguration of Africa’s first humanoid, Omeife on Friday in Abuja, to boost Artificial Intelligence (AI) and technological development in Nigeria and the African continent, Osinbajo, who was represented by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, said: “We are living in an exciting time of advanced technological advancement, where the science fictions of yesterday are becoming the reality in products and services of today.”
Osinbajo said that the Nigerian Government had the responsibility to ensure the success of the project developed by the Uniccon Group and urged stakeholders to key into it to ensure the success of the Omeife project and develop new ones.
In his speech, the CEO of Uniccon Group of Companies, Mr Chucks Ekwueme, stated that Africa has been recognised for its contribution to the global tech ecosystem.
Ekwueme explained that Omeife has the ability to speak eight different languages, which include: English, Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, French, Arabic, Kiswahili, Pidgin, Wazobia and Afrikaans.
According to him, the six-foot-tall female African humanoid provides language as a service for businesses that need to integrate native African audiences and that it is a multipurpose and assistance robot.
“We are happy to play a part in helping businesses and people all over Africa to achieve their fullest potential by providing access to the most innovative technologies for efficiency.
“It identifies and tags humans through face and facial expressions, paying attention to a specific item when required.
“It identifies objects, knows their characteristics and also calculates positions and distances of objects it sees,” local media reports on Saturday quoted Ekwueme as saying.
Earlier in a statement on Thursday, Uniccon Group of Companies said that the six-foot-tall female African humanoid provides has terrain intelligence, position awareness, advanced gestures, grip and it is also programmed to have a deep understanding of African culture and behavioral patterns as features.
According to the statement, Omeife identifies and tags humans through face and facial expressions, paying attention to a specific item when required.
“It Identifies objects, knows their characteristics and also calculates positions and distances of objects it sees.
“It pays attention to a specific person to keep the conversation alive. It is careful and aware of words, phrases, sentences and expressions that are not polite in African cultures.
”It is safe for the kid’s smooth interaction, it is not reactive and it is knowledgeable in various fields and always teachable.
“To improve and understand new things from conversations, it has the ability to recall, understand old concepts better with new information,” the statement added.
GIK/APA