The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has approved the creation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Division, under its Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Department.
National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, of INEC, Mr. Sam Olumekun disclosed this in a statement on Thursday in Abuja.
According to him, the establishment of the division was to allow the commission to continue to harness the positive aspects of AI and mitigate its negative impact on elections.
Olumekun noted that INEC at its Thursday regular weekly meeting, considered the increasing relevance of AI to elections and electoral activities in Nigeria and across the world.
The national commissioner further disclosed that recently, officials of the commission attended several conferences with colleagues around the continent on the impact of AI on elections.
Olumekun observed that the interactions were not only motivated by the concern over the use of AI to spread fake news but also to utilize its benefits for data-driven decision-making, risk detection, and mitigation.
He added that AI had also helped in deepening voter services automation and geospatial intelligence in support of logistic optimization for better material distribution and polling unit allocation.
