MTN Caution Journalists on Blind Reliance on AI in Training Held for Media and CSOs

MTN Ghana has organized a practical Artificial Intelligence (AI) training programme for media practitioners and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), equipping participants with knowledge and hands-on skills to harness emerging AI technologies effectively while understanding their limitations and associated risks.

The training, held on Monday, August 24, 2026, at MTN House in Accra, formed part of activities marking MTN Ghana's 30th anniversary and brought together journalists and CSO representatives to explore how AI can improve professional productivity, research, analysis and content development. 

The initiative reflects MTN Ghana's broader focus on digital inclusion and AI skills development. The company has indicated that it intends to expand digital skills and AI training initiatives as part of its sustainability and digital transformation agenda.

CEO and Founder of Afrilogic Solution, Samuel Adranyi, noted that though the use AI has made works of the media and CSOs easier and faster, he warned participants never to use AI as sources of their information. 

Failure to heed to this advice, he warned could lead to what he put as "hallucination" associated with the Al, Mr. Adranyi noted that "Al is a first draft assistant and a research accelerator, It is never a source".  

To avert this, he urged the trainees to always read sources of their information, compare them before bringing into public domain. He gave an instance where the Al when asked who the present president of  Ghana, John Dramani Mahama is, sees him as the former president of the country.

This and many other reasons he cautioned calls for sources of information gotten from the Al to be double checked so as to enable the media to continue to earn the trust that is required from them.

Head of Corporate Communications for MTN Ghana, Efua Falconer, in her welcome address noted that the MTN deemed it important to organize the day's workshop for the media and civil society organizations in the country so as to enable them better understand the use of AI and apply them in their daily activities. 

She therefore pleaded with the participants to imbibe knowledge gained in the training in their daily activities so as to help bring essence of the theme "From AI Curiosity to Evidence-Driven Confidence" into reality.        

The Senior Manager of MTN in charge of Analytics and Monetization, Kwame Manu, called on the participants to take the training seriously so as to enable them properly use the Ai to investigate, analyse data, accurate news reporting transcript and content production.

The media and the CSOs were introduced to ways of using AI in investigative journalism, data analysis, breaking news reporting, transcription, content production, media ethics and law. As part of the event, the trainees were also  educated on how to use the Ai to translate Ghanaian languages to English without. 

After a lengthy education on this, the facilitators, Samuel Adranyi, Founder of Afrilogic Solution and Nehemia Yelu Attigah, CEO of Hatuatech, however, warned trainees to be mindful of challenges associated with the use of Al during translation from Ghanaian languages to English. 

The caution according to them stem from how sensitive some choices of words could be while translating them. The two asked the media to always choose credibility and not eyeball or sensationalism.

Sompaonline.com// Eric Annan