{"id":360194,"date":"2026-08-02T17:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T17:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/360194\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T17:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T17:56:09","slug":"the-library-talks-back-sir-sam-jonah-says-ai-has-ended-the-age-of-knowledge-scarcity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/360194\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe library talks back\u201d: Sir Sam Jonah says AI has ended the age of knowledge scarcity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Artificial intelligence<\/a> has fundamentally changed the purpose of universities, according to the Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Sir Sam Jonah<\/a>, who says higher education institutions must urgently redefine their mission or risk becoming obsolete.<\/p>\n

Delivering a keynote address at the installation of Professor John Aheto as Vice-Chancellor on Saturday, 1 August, Sir Sam argued that universities were created in an era when knowledge was scarce, but that reality has changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor nine hundred years, the university has been built on a single foundation: the scarcity of knowledge. That world has ended,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He described AI as a turning point in human history, noting that \u201cfor the first time in human history, the cleverest entity in the room may not be a person.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to him, answers are now \u201cabundant, instant, and nearly free\u201d, forcing universities to answer a new question: \u201cWhat is a university for, when the library talks back?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sir Sam warned that institutions which see their role merely as transmitting knowledge would struggle to remain relevant. \u201cIf our answer is: \u2018to transmit knowledge\u2019 then we are finished, because a machine now does that better, faster and cheaper than we ever will. But if our answer is: \u2018to form human beings who can do what no machine can do, then the university is about to enter its greatest century,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While acknowledging concerns that AI could replace jobs, Sir Sam argued that the technology would instead increase the value of practical skills and human-centred professions. \u201cThe more artificial the world becomes, the more precious the human becomes.<\/p>\n

The economies that will flourish are not those with the most AI, but those whose people can do what AI cannot; the hand, the heart, the judgment, and the presence,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n

He cited reforms at leading global universities including MIT, Stanford and Harvard, saying they were embedding AI across disciplines rather than treating it as a specialist subject. He challenged UCC to follow suit, insisting that the gap between African universities and the world\u2019s leading institutions is increasingly \u201cdefined chiefly by resolve\u201d rather than resources.<\/p>\n

Beyond technology, Sir Sam called for greater investment in the humanities, saying ethics, empathy, courage and judgment remain uniquely human qualities.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the world races to accumulate Artificial Intelligence, the mission of this University must be to deepen Human Intelligence to match their AI,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ending on a call for African leadership, Sir Sam urged UCC to become a model for the continent\u2019s educational transformation.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day, historians will ask where, when the machines learned to think, human beings relearned what they were for. Let the answer be: in a university by the sea, in Cape Coast, in Ghana where a determined community decided that the future belongs not to those who know, but to those who can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

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