In April, I wrote an article bemoaning the speed at which we seem to lower standards and embrace mediocrity in public institutions.
That article, titled ‘Developmental State, Meritocracy and Minimum Requirements’, noted that “our country has subordinated meritocracy in preference of irrational and irrelevant considerations”.
Namibians are aware that our society and its leaders don’t value meritocracy.
Namibia is effectively a‘zula to survive’ [country] as one artist once sang, and you can ‘zula’ anywhere.
Countries that succeed economically, including the developing world, are those with serious and decisive leadership that values and champions meritocracy.
We need to stand up and demand the best of and for our country.
The enlightened must recall the advice of the philosopher Aristotle: “The wise who refused to rule should prepare to suffer the rule of idiots.”
CHATGPT CHATTER
Our country is witnessing a scandal involving the ruling party’s election manifesto purportedly not being written by men and women who seriously considered our country’s developmental issues and devised solutions.
It was apparently generated by a computer learning machine called ChatGPT.
When this accusation surfaced, the ruling party dispatched Youth League secretary Efraim Nekongo to defend the party.
Nekongo referred to the methodological aspects used, and claimed a certain Mwaala Lubinda, who appears to be an agriculturalist, had verified this methodology.
Immediately after Nekongo’s statements, screenshots appeared on social media, ostensibly indicating parts and quantums generated via ChatGPT.
Nekongo can be forgiven for a number of reasons.
Firstly, he has never entered a university lecture room as a student.
To expect him to comprehend complex research methodology is akin to taking a cattle herder into a biomedical laboratory and expecting them to identify O-positive blood from blood samples, or to make determinations related to pathogens.
Secondly, the Swapo Youth League constitution states its primary role is to serve as a ‘transmission belt’.
In a factory or on any assembly line, a ‘transmission belt’ is to move whatever is placed on it from one place to the other, with no role in production.
As long as the power/electricity is switched on, it will move and transmit.
Put differently, if someone couriers expired canned fish via DHL or NamPost, can these companies be blamed for the expired food?
Nekongo can thus not be blamed for possible ChatGPT content.
It is his role to transmit and defend whatever is on the transmission belt.
WHO PRESSED THE BUTTON?
There is a bigger problem which can only be determined by properly zooming in on this issue.
The question that must be asked is: Who opened ChatGPT, entered the commands and purportedly copied ChatGPT answers into the alleged manifesto?
Swapo’s ‘Think Pot’ consists of several chief executive officers, professionals – including vice chancellors and deputy vice chancellors of universities and executive directors of several ministries.
Did the ‘Think Pot’ decide on the ChatGPT method? How do we know that these individuals don’t use ChatGPT to run important national institutions?
Furthermore, it was announced that the manifesto was approved by Swapo’s central committee, which includes several ministers and even people we thought were of sound mind.
How did they approve the manifesto?
If professionals, academic leaders, ministers, executive directors and those part of the Swapo machinery can be associated with intellectual dishonesty, how is it not an indictment of our country?
One might be tempted to think it was an accident or oversight, although it passed the more than 300 eyes of Swapo’s leadership.
When put into perspective, there appears to be a pattern.
UNGROUNDED ‘FACTS’
A few weeks ago, vice president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah had to offer a public explanation following an earlier announcement that on 28 August a contractor would be on site to start renovating Independence Stadium.
It did not happen.
The vice president said she had been assured, in writing, that the stadium renovation would happen.
Interestingly, she remarked that “we cannot continue to lie to the public”. Does this indicate there are those in Swapo who have been lying?
To her credit, the vice president wants to end the lies.
In July, Nandi-Ndaitwah launched a Swapo document that claimed that since 1990 Swapo had acquired 3 483 083 226 hectares of agricultural land. The same document also claimed 603 farms had been acquired.
It is not possible to acquire three billion hectares as Namibia’s total land size is 82 million square hectares. The total farmland is only 39 million hectares.
Until a few months ago, 501 farms had been acquired and not 603 as claimed by the document.
Could this be a possible ChatGPT scenario?
BEWARE THE DANGERS
This is not an isolated Swapo matter. It is a serious problem that could easily spread to public institutions.
What if the statistics agency, home affairs, police statistics and ministry of finance were to normalise the use of ChatGPT for important national matters?
We should be alarmed.
If vice chancellors, education executive directors and higher education ministers are supporting ChatGPT documents to run the country, why shouldn’t university students use ChatGPT to do their assignments and masters theses?
This culture is dangerous. The first casualty will be higher education.
When higher education is gone, the second casualty will be our human resources frameworks and mechanisms.
If this happens, our economy will follow and the result will be a failed state.
Imagine a combination of hungry dishonest ‘intellectuals’ and overzealous tin brains surrounding the national pot, cooking meals for our children.
Indeed, unlike the stomach that makes a noise when empty, an empty brain does not alert anyone when empty.
- • Job Shipululo Amupanda is an associate professor in political studies at the University of Namibia and activist-in-chief of Affirmative Repositioning
– Editor’s Note: So far, there has been no independent fact check to confirm that Swapo used artificial intelligence. The party has denied using ChatGPT in their manifesto.
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