In an intense final debate, Ruth Okorocha emerged as the winner of Nigeria Info's 'I Beg To Differ' Tournament of Champions, defeating Ramadan Oladipupo for the grand prize of N2 million Naira.
The 'I Beg To Differ' tournament is Nigeria Info’s debate program aimed at championing intellectual conversations to position Nigerian youths as solution providers and critical thinkers.
The first topic of the debate was whether people whose data and works are used to train AI like DALL-E or ChatGPT should have some ownership rights over the art or insights it generates.
Oladipupo argued that people who contribute their data and work towards training AI models should have some ownership rights over the art or insights that the models generate.
He stated that it was essential to acknowledge the contribution of individuals toward the development of AI and ensure that they have a stake in the outcomes.
Okorocha, on the other hand, contended that AI is a collective effort that involves the contributions of many individuals and organizations.
She argued that ownership of the insights generated by AI should be with the organizations or entities that use the models for their own purposes.
In the second topic, "China is a better partner for Africa than the West," Ramadan who spoke in opposition stated that China has succeeded in getting many African countries into debt due to their many loans given to African countries.
According to him, Africa has built long partnerships with the West and China can't afford such partnerships due to language barriers.
On her part, Ruth noted that China, unlike the West, gives Africa the opportunity to grow and develop at its own pace.
"Africa has not seen any much-needed development in its over 40 years of partnership with the West," she added.
Femi Obong-Daniels, the Group Manager of CoolWazobiaNigeriaInfo, together with tournament sponsors (Paystack, Sunu Assurances, Obiwezy, JustFood, and Stova industries) presented Okorocha and Ramadan with gift prizes.
The program is a youth-led initiative that seeks to enhance the mental capacity of Nigerian students by promoting healthy debate competitions.
