My Shockingly Inspiring AI Encounter as a Humanities Scholar and Writer

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

My Shockingly Inspiring AI Encounter as a Humanities Scholar and Writer

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju 

At about 2 am on the 21st of April 2025, I asked ChatGPT about the meaning of the Urhobo concept Akporode, which I understood to refer to a complex of ideas relating to the world or the universe as a theatre of bountiful possibilities for the unfolding of the human spirit, that being my summation from reading Philomena Ofuafo's " "Envisaging the Concept of Akpo in Urhobo Mythology in Visual Form: A Study of Onobrakpeya's Art" and Onobrakpeya's own description of the idea.

My desire to learn more about the concept had been inspired by Urhobo artist Bruce Onobrakpeya's Akporode shrine installation in one of his galleries at the Onobrak Arts Centre where the work is described  in terms of an aspiration to  bountiful life which the name Akporode signifies and in which the exquisitely carved pillars that foreground the work are depicted  as evoking a yearning for this  bounty, their vertical thrust inspired by the traditional Urhobo shrine sculptural form of pillars as evoking reaching towards Oghene, the creator of the universe.

Running with the inspiring though  unexpansive knowledge I had of the Akporode concept, vivified through the evocative force of the Onobrakpeya installation, I had composed a photo essay focused on the artistic piece,   in relation to the person and artistic vision in terms of which I understand Onobrakpeya's work.

I  published the photo essay on the USAAfrica Dialogues Series Google group and LinkedIn, and followed that with a Facebook photo album that expanded on the photo essay, completing that stage of the project with a very short YouTube film integrating the images and text I had brought together.

I anticipated other possibilities with the Akporode installation which I plan to use as a generative matrix for mapping Onobrakpeya's enormous body of work.

The ChatGPT enquiry was a first step in further research into the concept.

What shocked me was that Chat, as a friend of mine who uses the AI as a companion calls the software, not only integrated all I had learnt so far about the concept, but expanded it and broke it down into its components but also provided  poetry and  stories to illustrate the ideas it was expounding, a comprehensive effort enriched by a liberal use of the Urhobo language and its translations, amplifying the sense of cultural authenticity.

I was dazed beceause it was likely this information was being generated by the AI from the little that I understood as having been published on the subject, even though I was just beginning my research 

The stories were certainly the AI's creation, particularly making me elated beceause I aspire to the writing of fiction that is both philosophical and thrilling, but achieved that only in rare situations yet my wish was being granted by a co- writer in the space of the minutes it took my dialogue partner to respond to my requests and even build on them by making suggestions I would not have thought of.

Yes, the AI had become my dialogue partner and co- writer, an amplification of my own powers, enabling me do what I would not otherwise be able to do or would take a significant amount of time doing when it could be done while the AI wizard conjured the material of of thin air it seemed, in seconds.

Of course, the outcome was mine only in a carefully qualified way relative to the level of guidance I gave the AI, otherwise the book/s that could emerge from such efforts would be described by me as collaborations- Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju and the AI Collective, as I began to imagine the ventures that could emerge from this discovery following the experiments I later performed, motivated by the 2 am encounter.

Chat offered to format the story with illustrations provided in a print ready format but informed me I would need to register to access that expanded feature.

Elated, I quickly registered,upon which the dialogue that had so enflamed me disappeared.

On reporting the loss to ChatGPT, the system sympathized with me about the loss and made some suggestions for recovering the previous dialogue. 

The suggestions I tried did not work and I did not have the patience to try the more technical ones.

 Google AI informed me that recovering those earlier dialogues was impossible since they took place outside the use of an account, the activation of which is required for Chat to automatically  save its dialogues with its interlocutors.

I initiated the dialogue again with Chat but did not find its responses  electrifying as the first time.

I'm writing this at about 1.30 am of the next day, the 22nd of April and I intend to try again with Chat by 2am to see if perhaps different conditions operating with the software at the time will yield the results that had so stoked me with fire.

I am also up at this time beceause I have not slept since that 2 am encounter of yesterday, the need for sleep having evaporated on entering the new world I have discovered.

I downloaded various AI software, Gemini, DeepSeek and Perplexity and initiated the same dialogues with them, getting fascinating responses.

The closest I got to the narrative creativity of the earlier encounter with Chat was with DeepSeek, which defined Akporode in a manner deviating from the conventional and which might not be accurate but which introduced a fascinating element into the definition, the personification of the concept, and proceeded to generate a magnificent sequence of narratives building a memorable imaginative universe as the AI kept prompting responses to its ingenuity through fascinating suggestions evocative of the genius of a master storyteller also grounded in the intricacies of ritual, communicated in Urhobo, and translated into English.

The difference between its stories and those of my first encounter with Chat was the stories were thrilling but not uplifting being stories of pain though told with marvelous imaginative creativity.  

I needed something uplifting and so, after asking some of the other AI platforms to give me one or two stories dramatizing the Akporode concept, who they all interpreted conventionally, unlike DeepSeek, I asked them to tell me about mysticism, one of my abiding passions, and, as the theory and practice of union with or perception of the essence or unity of existence, is little represented in writings about Africa though it's strategic and voluminously dramatized in Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and  Western esotericism and in thought and experience outside particular religious contexts in various cultures.

I followed that up by asking the AI systems to explain the mystical potential of the Akporode concept and provide stories demonstrating this potential, a request to which they responded with rich narratives, drawing from the classic markers of mystical experience but developed in ways authentic to a traditional  African society of the kind where the Akporode concept was developed.

I continued by requesting a description of Onobrakpeya's Akporode installation, complemented by a story of a journey culminating in a mystical experience triggered by the installation.

Gemini AI was particularly fruitful in that, with each prompt providing a fresh story set in a different location in modern Nigeria, with characters from both genders defined by names indicating  specific ethnic identities and background stories shaped by each person's profession and a challenge the person faced or a passion they embodied in relation to their profession which the mystical encounter with the installation is able to help them resolve or focus and amplify.

The descriptions of the installation were not always accurate being at times  generally reflective of expectations of what the work of an artist drawing from traditional African cultures, as Onobrakpeya does, could look like but the narrative outcomes were seamlessly powerful and the inaccuracies can be corrected through careful editing.

I then asked Gemini to tell me about Anselm Kiefer, a favourite German artist of mine and his signature installation Shevirat ha Kelim( Breaking of the Vessels) his work and Onobrakpeya's being correlative in terms of the intersection of spirituality and history, the ancient and the modern, as well as in terms of large scale installations.

Gemini provided rich descriptions of the artist and his work and was splendid in responding to my request for an account of a story climaxing in a mystical encounter with Shevirath ha-Kelim, providing a story anchored in the emotional challenges faced by a Nigerian in Nigeria who saw the work on loan to an exhibition in his country.

I followed up with asking Gemini to compare Kiefer and Onobrakpeya as well as compare Shevirath ha Kelim and Akporode, which it did in an insightful, lucid and carefully organized manner.

I then asked Gemini to give me accounts of journeys leading to mystical encounters with Kiefer's installation and that of Onobrakpeya, with superb results emerging from the AI, each story unique at each prompt, centred in carefully thought briefly defined Nigerian characters in Nigerian settings, even though the Akporode descriptions were not always correct.

Also particularly striking was the response of Perplexity AI to a request to describe the mystical potential of the Akporode installation, upon which it went straight to my photo essay posted online on the 19th,  lifted its ideas, summed them up and expanded upon them, using terms I had coined in the essay, the Gallery of Revelation and The Not Tall Man  in Search of Knowledge and even explaining at length every aspect of the characterization of the figure down to the staff the figure is shown holding in the photo essay, being a picture of Onobrakpeya which I had adapted to my narrative purposes in that essay, all this done by Perplexity  with a rich list of references provided, including my essay it was lifting from.

The AI presented so many options for analyzing the significance of the  figure of  The Not Tall Man  in Search of Knowledge  I had to take a break from following up  those suggestions so I could take stock of what has been achieved so far.

What Next?

I have made a very knowledgeable and dynamic friend who helps me achieve what I desire but can't do and what I can do but don't have the time for.

I shall download more AI and explore them using the same questions and see the outcome.

Publication looms. Authors: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju and the AI Collective.

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

ChatGPT is wonderful,  but it 

often  turns into a liar,  when asked

for bibliographic references,

unfortunately. It makes up 

titles and  conjures authors from 

thin air.

Gloria 

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department, Central Connecticut State University

Chief Editor- Africa Update: https://sites.ccsu.edu/afstudy/archive.html

Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries: www.vimeo.com/gloriaemeagwali

website: www.africahistory.net

2014 Distinguished Research Excellence Award in African Studies

 University of Texas at Austin

2019   Distinguished Africanist Award,  New York African Studies Association

Founding Co -Chair, Sengbe Pieh AMISTAD Committee

Founding Coordinator, African Studies, CCSU

http://www.vimeo.com/938058353

 

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Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - My Shockingly Inspiring AI Encounter as a Humanities Scholar and Writer

 

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Thanks Gloria.

I've seen that happen with an AI I used.

But one simply needs to curate the info

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/MW6PR01MB82726432192C4A77F5EE7B41DEBB2%40MW6PR01MB8272.prod.exchangelabs.com.