How Artificial Intelligence Could Make the Knowledge Activation Paradox Even Worse

An Uncle Rwamiti Story

Uncle Rwamiti had gone to visit his old friend, Professor Rwabutomize. As they drank tea on the veranda, the Professor lowered his voice.

“My son Andrew is still staying with us.”

Andrew was 32. He had a bachelor’s degree from Makerere and a master’s degree from a respected British university.

“What is he doing?” Uncle Rwamiti asked.

“Oh, he is extremely busy,” said the Professor’s wife. “In fact, please don’t disturb him. He is working.”

Uncle Rwamiti became curious.

Eventually Andrew emerged from his bedroom carrying a laptop and two phones.

“Uncle, these days I am into several projects.”

He opened his laptop.

There was an agritech platform. A consultancy. An online academy. A proposal for exporting organic foods to Europe. A 63-page business plan. Financial projections. Competitor analysis. PowerPoint presentations. Logos. Websites under development.

Everything looked impressive.

“How did you prepare all this?” Uncle Rwamiti asked.

Andrew smiled. “AI, Uncle. These days you can do incredible things with artificial intelligence.”

Indeed.

Andrew showed him prompts that would have frightened some university lecturers. He could analyse markets, develop strategies, write proposals, create financial models, design marketing campaigns and even identify investors.

Uncle Rwamiti was impressed.

Very impressed.

Then he asked:

“Andrew, in the last 30 days, who has paid you?”

The room became quiet.

Andrew adjusted his laptop.

“Well, Uncle, these projects are still at development stage.”

“How many customers have you spoken to?”

“We are still refining the concept.”

“Have you tested the agritech platform with farmers?”

“Not yet.”

“Has anyone ordered the organic food?”

“We are developing the export strategy.”

“Has anybody paid for the consultancy?”

“Not yet.”

Professor Rwabutomize looked at his tea.

His wife came to Andrew’s defence.

“But Uncle, you can see how hard he works. Sometimes he is on that computer until two in the morning.”

Uncle Rwamiti nodded.

That was precisely what worried him.

When Inactivity Begins to Look Like Work

Once upon a time, when a young man was doing nothing, everybody could see that he was doing nothing.

Artificial intelligence may have changed that.

Today inactivity can look extraordinarily sophisticated.

Reports. Charts. Business plans. Market analyses. Strategies. Presentations. Beautiful logos. Twenty-page documents produced before anybody has spoken to the first customer.

Uncle Rwamiti turned to Andrew.

“My son, AI is a magnificent tool. But there is one place it cannot go for you.”

“Where, Uncle?”

“Outside.”

Andrew laughed.

Uncle Rwamiti did not.

AI can identify the customer. You must meet the customer.

AI can design the questionnaire. You must ask the questions.

AI can suggest the prototype. You must build it.

AI can calculate the price. Somebody must refuse to pay it.

AI can prepare the sales pitch. You must hear the first NO.

And perhaps the second.

And the tenth.

Because something happens out there that cannot happen inside the laptop.

Reality answers back.

The Knowledge Activation Paradox

That evening Uncle Rwamiti left Professor Rwabutomize’s home thinking about Uganda’s educated young people.

Perhaps artificial intelligence will give this generation access to more knowledge than any generation before it.

But that may create a new danger.

We may confuse access to knowledge with activation of knowledge.

For generations, our education problem was largely about access to knowledge. We built schools, universities and libraries. Families sacrificed fortunes to send children abroad. Knowledge was scarce, expensive and difficult to obtain.

AI is changing that equation.

The young graduate sitting in Kampala can now summon explanations of marketing, finance, coding, agriculture, international trade and entrepreneurship within seconds.

But there remains a stubborn question:

What can you do with what you know?

The laptop can become another classroom.

Another certificate.

Another safe place to prepare indefinitely for a world one never actually enters.

At Some Point, the Chicken Must Cross

At the gate Uncle Rwamiti turned back and shouted:

“Andrew!”

“Yes, Uncle?”

“A chicken can spend the whole day studying the road.”

Andrew smiled.

Uncle Rwamiti continued:

“At some point, it must cross.”

Perhaps that is one of the great challenges of the AI age.

The future may not belong simply to those with the greatest access to knowledge. Almost everyone may eventually have extraordinary knowledge within reach.

The divide may increasingly be between those who accumulate knowledge and those who activate it.

AI can help us think.

It can help us plan.

It can even help us create.

But eventually somebody has to close the laptop, walk through the gate and encounter reality.

Knowledge must meet action.

And action must eventually meet the market.

Dr Petero Wamala, DBA
Making sense of change through ethical storytelling