03/09/2024

TUESDAY | SEP 3, 2024

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Loneliness at Lokutu Estate T HE next day the pilot Didi came to the bungalow early and said the clouds were low, and we must take off to get to Lokutu Estate. which I visited as scheduled. The elderly Belgian nuns were proud to show the beds of clean white sheets, taking me through the wards of patients. I met Jacques when he was an estate manager near Kluang. He had worked in Indonesia in his early days and then came to Malaysia with his wife.

outside the hut. On the way back to the boat, John said: “That man has gone bush.” That evening after dinner, and over his biscuit and cheese, John had more to add: “It can happen easily. That is why when I accepted the job, it was on condition that I had Doreen travelling with me. Without her support, standards would go down, and all is lost. “Doreen takes care of everything. I need her with me so I can do my job.” John also told me that Tippu Tip was a friend of the explorer Henry Morton Stanley. He was famous for finding David Livingstone, who was working as a missionary in Tanzania across the border, although it was said that he did not need to be found. Tippu Tip knew Livingstone, John said, as he went deeper into local history. Tippu Tip had helped Stanley on his expeditions, even into south Sudan. The expedition went to rescue Emin Pasha, the German-born governor of a province there. It turned out Pasha did not want to be rescued. On that journey, Stanley had lost many of his men in the Ituri forests past Basoko. Years later, I was to recall what John said about Doreen. But for that evening, I forgot to ask him about Bewick. The writer has extensive experience in the management of oil palm plantations. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

I listened to the Congolese nurses explaining in French. They could turn to the nuns to explain further. I saw that the operating table was old, and the room for childbirth was bare, with a wooden bed and a gap in the middle where the baby would be received. At the school, the children stood in their neat blue uniforms and sang the school song led by a nun. I learned that the missionaries and the nuns had worked there from the early years, even during the civil wars. The next day, John and I were sick. Fortunately, it was a Sunday, and as both of us tried to recover on the verandah, Doreen came with spoons and a bottle of medicine, now in her role as a trained nurse. By evening, both of us felt better. Dinner was my favourite rice and curry with the spices Doreen had brought from Penang while John stuck to his bread and butter. We sat looking over the Congo River. A pale moon was shining. I let John talk. “We have plenty to do here. Usually, we try to get an expatriate to lead each estate. We had Jacques Dumont for a while. But you know that he had to resign. Could not take the loneliness.” G E R W R I T E S B D U L L A H

I had no time to see Colin Bewick, the personnel manager whom I had promised to chat with. I could sense he had something on his mind. I made a point of asking John Dodd later about that. Although Lokutu was far upriver, the Congo was still wide, and from the air I could see the islands and the far bank before Didi throttled down and the Cessna wheels rolled on the grass airstrip. Doreen got into action unloading the luggage and the provisions. She would sort out the guesthouse where we were going to stay. Citoyen Batanga was the manager, a bright young man who gave a briefing, and although the yield was low he did not use the usual excuses of the weather, old palms or labour shortages that I was prepared to hear. Instead, he listed the things he was doing to raise the crop. John sat silently, with his chin up, looking pleased. He had promoted Batanga only a few months before I arrived. We covered the field visits and I got to understand how big the area was. It was divided in two parts, mainly of old palms, with a big mill that was at the river’s edge. It had a hospital, E S T A T E M A B Y M A H B IN the grand theatre of human progress, we stand on the precipice of a new act, where the protagonists are not flesh and blood but silicon and code. Artificial intelligence (AI), once the stuff of science fiction, has stepped into the spotlight, promising to revolutionise every corner of our existence. Yet, as we marvel at the brilliance of these artificial minds, we must ask ourselves: Are we dancing with the future or are we being led astray by a digital pied piper? AI is a double-edged sword – its sharpness promising to heal and to harm. Like a painter with infinite brushes, it has the power to create masterpieces of efficiency, precision and innovation. In medicine, AI holds the potential to diagnose diseases with an accuracy that rivals the best of human doctors. In agriculture, it can predict and manage crop yields with unparalleled foresight. In every sector, AI promises to be the lighthouse guiding us through the fog of complexity. But even as we celebrate these advances, we must not lose sight of the shadows that AI casts. The intelligence we admire is also the harbinger of a profound disruption, one that threatens to unweave the delicate fabric of our society. Jobs, once considered safe and secure, are being swallowed by the insatiable maw of automation. The artisan, the craftsman, the skilled worker – figures who have shaped civilisations – now find themselves at risk of obsolescence, replaced by machines that do not tire, do not err and do not need a paycheck. More insidious still is the potential for AI to amplify the biases and prejudices that have long plagued humanity. These artificial minds, despite their inhuman brilliance, are not immune to the flaws of their creators. In the hands of the reckless, AI can become a weapon, perpetuating inequalities and injustices with a speed and scale

It was a good life, close to Singapore. But in retirement and back in Belgium, his wife left him, and he had come to London for a job. Being a Belgian, and he spoke French, he would fit in well, but loneliness got to him. He fell sick, and soon he could not go on. I could get the feeling of isolation, cut off from all that was familiar. “It can be easy to feel depressed,” John said. “This river has seen some rough times, too. It used to be the route where the raiders would come and capture the villagers to sell as slaves. The biggest slave trader was called Tippu Tip because the villagers said that was the sound of his guns. He was part Arab and part African. He brought the captives back to Zanzibar. Before that, he held them in a castle at a town upriver, called Basoko.” We had some time in the next afternoon to visit Basoko. The wind was up and the boat went through choppy waters, and when we arrived at last, there was nothing to see except for a low stone wall that was once the castle. John had heard of a Portuguese trader who lived in town, and we found him lying sick at the back of a hut, skin and bones, unable to get up. He had lived there for years. He refused any help. His Congolese wife, hardly in her teens, played with a baby chimpanzee tied to a post

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Navigating complex maze of artificial minds

COMMENT by Alfonso Min

AI is a double edged sword – its sharpness promising to heal and to harm. Like a painter with infinite brushes, it has the power to create masterpieces of efficiency, precision and innovation. But as we celebrate the advances, we must not lose sight of the shadows that AI casts. The intelligence we admire is also the harbinger of a profound disruption, one that threatens to unweave the delicate fabric of our society.

Jobs, once considered safe and secure, are being swallowed by the insatiable maw of automation. – REUTERSPIC

unimaginable in the analogue world. The biases coded into algorithms, whether by design or by oversight, can lead to decisions that are as unjust as they are invisible, hidden behind a veneer of mathematical objectivity. In our pursuit of AI, we may be at risk of losing something deeply human. The poet in us may falter as we come to rely more on the cold logic of machines and less on the warmth of human intuition. The philosopher in us may wither as we outsource our moral dilemmas to systems that calculate without conscience. The essence of what it means to be human – our capacity for empathy, creativity and ethical reasoning – may be eroded as we increasingly defer to our digital counterparts.

Yet, there is hope. The story of AI is not yet written, and the pen remains in our hands. We must approach this new era with optimism and caution, balancing our excitement with a deep sense of responsibility. The key lies in ensuring that AI serves humanity, not the other way around. We must demand transparency, fairness and accountability from those who design and deploy these systems. We must champion the values that make us human – compassion, justice and respect for the dignity of all people – as we navigate this uncharted territory. In the end, the irony of intelligence, artificial or otherwise, is that it is a gift and a burden. Like fire, it can warm our homes or burn them to the ground.

The challenge before us is to harness this new flame, to ensure that it illuminates rather than incinerates. The future is not a foregone conclusion, but a choice – a choice that we must make with wisdom, foresight and a profound respect for the human spirit. The writer holds a BA in Mass Communication (Journalism) (Hons) and an MA in Media and Information Warfare Studies from Universiti Teknologi Mara as well as a PhD in Political Studies from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. He currently serves as the principal assistant secretary at the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia in Sabah. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com