Assessing the Adequacy of Artificial Intelligence Tools for African Narratives: Towards Responsible and Culturally Inclusivity
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Date
2025-11-28
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Publisher
FUW Trends in Science & Technology Journal
Abstract
The increasing reliance on Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) across diverse domains has sparked
global attention regarding its adequacy and accuracy. Specifically, its capacity to capture and represent African
narratives remains underexplored. Most AI systems are developed within Western contexts fail to align with
Africa's diverse sociocultural realities, thereby perpetuating biases, misrepresentation, and the erasure of
indigenous knowledge systems. This study critically evaluates the performance of the ChatGPT, DeepSeek,
Gemini, and Perplexity large language models in processing and representing African narratives. Using a
mixed-methods approach, it incorporates systematic assessments of selected popular AI tools and qualitative
input from domain experts in African linguistics, culture and technology. A survey involving academic staff
from state and federal universities in Nigeria’s North-Central region contributed 24 relevant prompts, which
were combined with 15 research-generated prompts, totalling 39. These prompts were executed concurrently
on the selected AI models, and the resulting outputs were evaluated by subject-matter experts for accuracy,
adequacy, and credibility. Perplexity consistently achieved the highest ratings across all parameters, whereas
the other models displayed varying degrees of effectiveness. Notably, the findings revealed a “white as default”
bias and a tendency to prioritise content from Eastern and Southern Africa. The study also identified serious
gaps in the handling of African languages, idioms, and culturally embedded expressions, stemming from the
poor representation of low-resource languages, limited infrastructure, skill deficiencies, and weak governance.
In response, this study proposes roadmaps for responsible AI development tailored to African contexts,
advancing ethical practices and amplifying African voices in the digital era.