NAIROBI, Kenya Aug 17 – Kenya’s Special Envoy on Technology Phillip Thigo has warned against excessive dependence on artificial intelligence, saying it could undermine people’s ability to think independently.
Speaking on Capital FM, Thigo identified loss of human agency as one of three major concerns Kenya must address as AI adoption accelerates.
He said Kenyans need to examine how they are using AI rather than focusing only on the country’s high adoption rates.
The envoy added that excessive dependence on AI could affect people’s ability to think independently.
“That we are delegating our thinking to machines. We are basically outsourcing our lives and our brains to these machines. So that’s the number one risk,” Thigo said.
On children, he said families need to understand the technology instead of leaving digital decisions entirely to young people.
“We’re actually allowing technology to parent our kids. And I think we need to flip that. That’s why I talk about fluency,” he said.
Thigo identified human agency, child safety and exclusion as three key areas requiring attention as Kenya enters the AI era.
Thigo said the government is working towards a wider national conversation on child safety and digital technology, with the emphasis not being on banning technology but on understanding how it can be used safely and productively.
The third concern, he said, is exclusion, particularly for people and communities that cannot keep pace with rapid technological change.
“The problem with these capabilities is that they may exclude a majority from opportunity. And, and excluding a majority from opportunity not because of choice, but because of speed,” he said.
He also argued that Kenya should develop shared digital infrastructure to reduce the cost of accessing advanced technologies. He said expensive computing infrastructure could make some AI applications commercially impractical for low-income sectors such as smallholder farming.
“Not every sector needs a data center, right? Not, not every sector needs a compute. It could be shared, which means it becomes cheaper for everybody and more efficient in most cases,” he said.
