By Abubakar Imam
The Dean, Faculty of Communication and Information Sciences, University of Ilorin, Prof. Saudat Salah Abdulbaqi, has encouraged staff members and students of the Faculty and the University at large to embrace Artificial Intelligence(AI) in all their academic and professional endeavours for them to remain relevant.
Prof. Abdulbaqi gave this advice last Tuesday (October 7, 2025) while speaking at the closing ceremony of a two-day workshop titled “AWS Cloud and Generative AI For Teaching and Research” at the Laboratory Room of the Faculty. The workshop was jointly organised by the Faculty and Arthurite Integrated.
The Dean, who is also a Council Member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations(NIPR), said that AI has become an indispensable phenomenon in contemporary life, particularly in the academic field.
Prof. Abdulbaqi explained that the fear that AI will displace humans as being circulated in some quarters, is unfounded, saying that it is only those who are indifferent to it that would be eventually displaced.
The scholar of Mass Communication said that the Faculty would organise more of such training for all to be conversant with AI and how it can be effectively and positively deployed.
Presenting a paper at the event, an Information Technology expert, Mr Goodluck Adiole, urged participants to ensure that they acquire and develop the ability to control AI, saying that they should never allow it to control them.
Mr Adiole said that users of AI should also learn how to converse and ask the machine the right questions to ensure that appropriate responses are provided.
He said that users must always converse with the AI in a desirable context, saying that the context in which questions are asked would determine the quality of responses to be generated.
The workshop attracted staff and students of the Faculty including a former Sub-Dean of the Faculty, Dr Amos Bajeh; an Associate Professor at the Department of Information Technology, Dr Rofiat Oyekunle and a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Mass Communication and Member, UNILORIN Bulletin Editorial Board, Dr Abdulkadir Oba Laaro, among others.
