Early this year I was in Ghana. I counted 43 billboards (on one street) for different churches advertising all sorts.

“Step in to your destiny 2018”, “Crossover bonanza service”, “taking over”,“Destiny night” etc… etc.. you know the usual grand promises of how our lives will change and will never be the same again. In the coming year.

Our reliance on religion for breakthroughs is now part and parcel of the Ghanaian culture and mental state. In fact, so deeply engrained is our religious madness, that you will find that when you have lived outside Ghana for a while and come home and ask someone, how they are doing you will most often hear something like “by his grace ooh” everyone assumes everyone is a Christian/Religious. This is Ghana.

Ghana is a case study in “How religion spoils everything and retards economic growth”. Why? Well for one we invest more in our religious institutions than we do in our businesses, our institutions, and healthcare. This is a fact. I listened with great interest as a “man of God “encouraged his followers to donate 1 million dollars. With great surprise and horror. And I asked myself, for what purpose?

As we continue to wallow in our religion induced mental poverty and natural stupidity, there is a storm coming, that will surely sweep us all away once and for all (no it is not the 2nd coming or the rapture). It is Artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence (AI) unlike religion will change our lives very soon. For sure! – while we have been fasting and praying and looking to the sky for solutions. The west has been busy investing in the next paradigm shift. I have watched almost every Ted talk on AI, and what I see scares me to the core. We need to wake up to this technology fast or face total economic and financial ruin for good!

Within the next 10 years I anticipate the emergence of the first artificial consciousness. The next generation of computers will be so clever they will write their own code, at which point, even our best endeavours, and most fervent prayers will not stop the advance of this super intelligence.

It is not too late to jump on board. In fact as a nation, if we stopped all our silly money wasting scams, and focused purely on becoming an AI capable nation in the next 10 years, I guarantee you our GDP will exceed every single nation in sub-Saharan Africa! if you think this impossible remember this. Last week a company (Apple) became the world’s first Trillion-dollar company. Let me put this in context. If ALL the work we ever did in Ghana was create 1 company called Apple, and every Ghanaian worked for Apple, we would be the richest nation in Africa.

We have fasted and prayed enough! Lets invest 1 million dollars in an AI start-up on this continent. May our money never go towards lining the pockets of another man of God! If Ghana had invested 10,000 dollars in Apple when it started, we would have over 50billion dollars cash in the bank today. Free SHS would not be a battle.

Love always

Alfy

This piece was written by Alfred Opare Saforo, an IT person with TeamAlfy based in the United Kingdom.

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