Leo Igwe on AI, Humanism, Moral Judgment, and Reducing Suffering

Dr. Leo Igwe is a Nigerian philosopher, humanist activist, and Vice President of Humanists International. He founded the Nigerian Humanist Movement, now the Humanist Association of Nigeria, and directs Advocacy for Alleged Witches. His work focuses on humanism, critical thinking, religion, witchcraft accusations, nonbelief, and human rights across Africa today.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Dr. Leo Igwe discuss artificial intelligence through a humanist lens, examining catastrophic risk, moral judgment, wrongful convictions, technological bias, and human fallibility. Igwe argues that AI should be evaluated by whether it improves decision-making, advances fairness, reduces suffering, and helps humans make more just judgments overall.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Welcome back. We are here again with Dr. Leo Igwe, recently elected Vice President of Humanists International after several years as a board member of the same organization. He founded the Nigerian Humanist Movement, now the Humanist Association of Nigeria, and is the founder of Advocacy for Alleged Witches, which campaigns against witchcraft accusations and persecution in Africa. Today, we are going to be talking about something he has commented on in other contexts over the last few years, probably longer than that. Those are the years I am aware of, and he will clarify that for me. It primarily has to do with AI and humanism.

Specifically, there is the question of humanism having principles of universalism while AI is a tool whose training inputs, in many major web-derived datasets, have been disproportionately English-language and Western-centric. These inputs are used to train LLMs and other AI systems. Logistically, many of the companies developing these technologies have generally been based in those countries. Ideally, however, the eventual aim would be to have more universal human input so that there is a more representative sample in terms of how these machines work.

There is also the question of applications in robotics and related technologies. What are your starting thoughts on humanism and AI, with humanism as a life stance in relation to a new technology? And what are your thoughts on African presence and input in the advanced development of these potentially incredibly powerful technologies?

Dr. Leo Igwe: Thank you, Scott. The history of the emergence of technologies tells us that whenever there is any major technological breakthrough, there are fears. It comes with fears, and some of these fears may be valid, while some may also be invalid. I think that AI, as extraordinary as it could be in terms of its potential, possibilities, and implications for humanity and the world, is just another form of technological breakthrough, and people are expressing their fears and anxieties.

Imagine taking us back over a hundred years, before the invention of airplanes, and hearing that there would be a machine carrying human beings and flying overhead, not just one, but maybe two. Today, we have them in the thousands, if not tens of thousands, every day and every week, flying overhead and carrying human beings. Imagine the kind of fears people had.

Take us even farther back, when machetes were invented or when guns were invented. You can imagine the fears people had. Some people might have said, “We have invented something that will mark the end of human beings.”

But, of course, like I said, there were valid fears. Will these technologies cause harm? Will they give power to those who want to cause harm?

The answer is yes. Today, we read that America and other countries have various weapons systems, including technologies deployed in or through space, that could potentially be used to kill people.

Today, you may not need to send soldiers. Some countries do not need to send soldiers; they can send drones. AI is here again with some mind-boggling breakthroughs and possibilities that, of course, elicit fears among people. But it is important for us to know that those fears are not out of place.

Just like other technologies that we invented, and just like other technological breakthroughs we had in the past, they emerged, elicited anxieties, and those anxieties were managed. Here we are today with tens of thousands of planes flying over our heads, including drones. AI is also here to capacitate human beings and, of course, give us more power.

But of greater importance is that we also have to regulate and manage it to make sure that AI serves human ends, rather than humanity serving the ends of AI.

Jacobsen: Data centers have primarily been concentrated in the United States, China, parts of Europe, Canada, and some GCC states. Africa still has comparatively limited data-center capacity, while the GCC states are expanding their capacity rapidly. But if you take large, populous countries in Africa with growing populations, such as Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, South Africa, and Kenya, you are going to have a talent pool there that may not necessarily have the immediate infrastructure needed to support investment in AI technology. That requires data centers and sufficient power generation to supply the electricity needed for appropriate levels of compute. Do you see efforts in some of the larger economies in Africa to invest in these technologies domestically?

Igwe: Yes, of course. It is important for us to know that one of the fears a lot of people have is that those who control the data, those who control AI, and those who dominate AI will, of course, dominate the world and others. As I also noted, technology serving the interests of dominant sections of the world, or sections of the world that tend to dominate, is also a fact.

But we have also seen technological breakthroughs and technological goods shared. Yes, of course, this has not led to addressing existing inequalities between nations and across the world. But it has also not created a situation in which it is completely a zero-sum game.

By that, I mean that international cooperation between nations will also be seen in the areas of sharing and cooperation, in terms of data sharing and countries with data centers cooperating with other nations, of course, according to their interests. So technopolitics will also come into play, and African countries will begin to do their own part through multilateral agencies such as the UN and the World Bank, as well as through other alliances. For instance, we talk about the G7 and the G20, among other groupings. Some of these groupings of states and countries could also provide avenues through which inequalities between nations could be assuaged or addressed, creating opportunities for countries to share what they have in terms of data, knowledge, and technology in ways that would benefit others.

So yes, we have AI and emerging technologies that are creating a situation that might deepen global inequalities. But we also understand that global inequalities are not new. We had the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and many other empires in the past that dominated or conquered other places.

But we have seen over the years that other parts of the world have also taken measures to address these inequalities. At the end of the day, the impacts on our humanity have not been as extreme as people have feared or anticipated. So I still think that African countries are also going to invest in alliances and establish cooperation and relationships that will help them address and manage the inequalities that are going to be there, making sure they are not as deep or as impactful as a lot of people are projecting, especially those who view emerging technologies as tools that will eventually deepen inequalities between countries, particularly between African countries and the rest of the world.

Jacobsen: Within a humanist context, returning to this focus, there is the Luxembourg Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Human Values from 2025. It was drafted by Humanists UK with input from AI experts and other Humanists International member organizations, and it was adopted by the Humanists International General Assembly in Luxembourg on July 6, 2025. Does this provide a helpful framework, or does it do more than simply provide a framework for considering some of the issues dealing with AI alignment?

Igwe: Yes, of course it does. I see technology as two-edged, whether we are talking about technology in terms of AI or, as I said, something as basic as a machete. It is two-edged. It could be utilized for good; it could be utilized to benefit and enrich humanity. It could also be utilized to destroy, in fact, to obliterate human beings and life.

So it is always important to remind ourselves that bad people are out there. People who intend either to have the world go their way or to destroy it are there. We should not doubt that. What is going on in the world today, whether in the Middle East or in the case of Russia and Ukraine, should tell us that unchecked power could be devastating, not just for regions but for humanity at large. Emerging technologies, as we are seeing today, could put extraordinary powers, including the power to exterminate other human beings, into the hands of those who, if not checked, could use them.

We see that going on today. So it is important to remind ourselves not to allow technologies, AI, our discoveries, and our inventions to fall into the hands of those who would use them to destroy humanity. It is important to draw attention to the fact that, yes, we have to be checked and regulated. Human beings are also animals, and we have animalistic tendencies. By this, I mean tendencies that could create a situation of barbarism, in which we could oversee the massive slaughter of ourselves. If unchecked, emerging technologies could be used toward that end.

So it is important that this humanist point be made. That reminder should be made, especially as we enter a phase in which artificial intelligence is going to take on an increasingly significant role in various aspects of our lives and our relationships as human beings going forward.

Jacobsen: There was a point at which the late Daniel Dennett commented on the prospect of highly capable machines being mass-produced and essentially impersonating people. He called them “counterfeit people.” He feared that mass-produced artificial identities could undermine trust in various social institutions. How would we potentially confront a future in which a bad actor produces a large number of artificial actors to scam, hack, and engage in similar activities?

What could be the response from countries that have a head start in the technology? And how do countries that do not have that technological head start protect themselves institutionally and protect their citizens?

Igwe: I think it is through the ways we have always protected ourselves. The difference is that, as inventors and innovators up their game, regulators and those responsible for keeping these inventions in check should also up their game. We cannot stop inventing and innovating. That is who we are as human beings, and that is what we will remain. That is how human beings left the cave, through invention and innovation.

And yes, it comes with that anxiety. People wonder, “Oh, this might be the invention that will mark the end of invention.” Remember when they talked about the “end of history” and all that, the idea of the end of history?

Jacobsen: Oh, Francis Fukuyama, yes.

Igwe: Yes. So some people could say, “We have come to the end of it.” There is this idea of Armageddon. We have come to that point; we have invented something that will mark the end of invention. But do you know what?

We can also invent something that will checkmate the very thing we said would mark the end of it. So we have to constantly invent, reinvent, and invent again. It is a process that goes on, just like the movement of the planets.

That is the way our creative intelligence works. We keep coming up with mind-boggling breakthroughs, which make a lot of people think, “We are going to have robots everywhere. They are going to take over our jobs.” Yes, as I said, there are valid fears. But it is still from the same kind of human minds that invented the robots that we are also going to have inventions that checkmate them and help address the fears that arise as a result of the invention of robots.

I prefer to describe myself not just as a techno-optimist, but also as a techno-realist. I am a techno-realist in the sense that these technological breakthroughs, if not properly handled, could really destroy us. But I am a techno-optimist in the sense that, at the end of the day, after all the debate, after all the fears, and even after some of those fears are expressed through disasters, wars, and massive slaughter, the good part of us will still keep us going, keep us inventing, and keep us reinventing ourselves and our world.

Jacobsen: Interesting. There have been some other prominent humanists who take an international view of these issues and have travelled extensively. Stuart Russell was in discussion with Steven Pinker about AI safety and the extrapolation from current AI to potentially omnipotent superintelligence. Pinker said, “I’m on record as being skeptical of that scenario and dubious about the value of putting a lot of effort into worrying about it now.”

Richard Dawkins, approaching the issue through philosophical naturalism and the difficult intellectual questions surrounding the definition of consciousness, has commented on the possibility of consciousness arising in a manufactured system rather than an evolved biological system. Dawkins said, “I see no reason why in the future we shouldn’t reach the point where a human-made robot is capable of consciousness and of feeling pain.”

So, from a humanist ethical standpoint, Dawkins is raising the possibility that consciousness and the capacity to experience pain could eventually arise in an engineered, synthetic system. I have a few more examples, but I will get your reflections on those two statements first.

Igwe: You see, as I noted earlier, there is no limit to our creative possibilities and projections. That is our nature, and that tendency also helps us survive.

Whenever we make these possibilities real, whenever we express this creative ingenuity and articulate it through projections about the future of humanity, it also helps to keep us in check. Somehow, as we make those projections about how things are going to play out, we are also implicitly making projections about how we are going to manage them.

And do not forget that many of us who make these projections today will not be there. So they are making projections about contexts without precise knowledge of them. As I said about realism, we have talked about the possibility of a situation in which consciousness could be engineered.

Yes, perhaps in the future. But I can assure you that some of the people saying this may not be around in the next 20 or 30 years. Those who will be around then will find themselves in a situation similar to ours today. Do not forget that the technologies we are using today would have sounded like what Dawkins is projecting if described to people who lived 100 or 200 years ago.

But here we are today, having fun and making projections again about a future in which many of us likely will not be present. As people are born, they encounter these technologies as part of their world. Today, with AI and other technologies, if you want to learn, you do not necessarily need to go to a school.

You just need to have a phone. You understand? And you can learn about almost anything, including medicine. That was not the case some decades ago, perhaps 20, 30, or 40 years ago, depending on which part of the world you are in.

Again, I return to the idea of differences because there has always been this idea that one part of the world will have a technology while others will not. You are Canadian; you are in the Americas and may have greater access to the internet. But do not forget that you need widespread internet access for you to talk with me here in Nigeria.

So we are somehow compelled to share these technologies with our friends, in quotation marks, or even to do so in furtherance of our own interests. What I am saying is this: while we make these projections about the future, I still think there are aspects of those futures that we cannot see from here. We simply cannot see them.

And do not forget that we are also thinking about making life multiplanetary, as Elon Musk has talked about. Now, who will go there? Will we go with our frail bodies and all that?

Do you not think that we might also need more synthetic forms of human beings to cope with some of the conditions on other planets? So we might be looking at one aspect of the issue without seeing other aspects. That is why I said that, at the end of the day, while it is good for us to make these projections and think about how they could affect humanity, there are aspects of those projections that may not be realized, or they may not play out as we projected them.

It will be those who, over the years, are socialized into a world in which these inventions are becoming realities who will also come up with inventions that help them cope with some of the adverse consequences of these developments, including those we now fear might mark the end of humanity.

Jacobsen: And a few more: Peter Singer, A.C. Grayling, and Christopher DiCarlo. Peter Singer, with Yip Fai Tse, published a peer-reviewed paper arguing that AI ethics should consider not only humans and hypothetical sentient AI, but also non-human animals affected by AI systems.

This is very much in line with Singer’s life’s work and his expansion of utilitarian moral consideration to non-human animals. It is also consistent with the Amsterdam Declaration 2022, which extends humanists’ duty of care beyond humanity to all sentient beings. So this commentary follows, I think, from similar previous commentary as well.

A.C. Grayling, who was also a keynote speaker at the 2026 World Humanist Congress in Ottawa, which I was unfortunately unable to attend, has been looking at whether systems can genuinely understand and care, in addition to making moral judgments. That last one is a little trickier, in my opinion, because human beings, as we were engineered by nature, exist in an open system.

AI systems typically operate within bounded systems, even if those systems can be extremely wide-ranging. So they would need to have an extraordinarily expansive framework capable of considering the relevant moral frameworks for decision-making that could affect humans and non-human animals. Alternatively, they would somehow need to be engineered so that they could elaborate upon these frameworks and operate in open environments while making caring, understanding, and morally informed decisions.

The last one is Dr. Christopher DiCarlo, a Canadian humanist whom I have also interviewed. He wrote a 2025 essay entitled “Artificial Intelligence and Humanism in Action.” Again, I will curate the sources for this interview when I am done.

In the essay, he argues that humanism has to have a response to AI. It was published on November 26, 2025, after the Luxembourg Declaration had been adopted earlier that year. In that sense, humanism had already begun providing an institutional response. He also considers the possibility that AGI and ASI, artificial general intelligence and artificial superintelligence, could pose catastrophic risks.

I would expand his orientation by saying that humanism not only should and does have an answer, but must have one. A universal concern should incorporate a global concern or, logically, has to derive one from its universalism. Therefore, technologies being developed either in authoritarian political systems, such as China, or in democratic societies experiencing documented institutional strains, such as the United States, are going to have global impacts, whether these countries compete or cooperate. In practice, they are doing both in complicated and sometimes paradoxical ways.

Other parts of the world that begin to catch up in AI development, including Canada, will also have to treat this as a humanist concern because these technologies affect everyone, even if not always directly. A useful analogy is what happened following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, where I currently am, in Kyiv. Disruptions to Ukrainian grain exports quickly demonstrated how many countries depended heavily on Ukrainian grain and other food exports.

AI is similarly a humanist concern because universal concerns are now global concerns. We are deeply interconnected. AGI, ASI, AI, robotics, and related technologies may not necessarily affect everyone immediately, but they will increasingly affect societies around the world. Therefore, they are everyone’s concern and, from that perspective, necessarily a humanist concern.

What are your thoughts on Singer, Grayling, and DiCarlo?

Igwe: I mean, the issue of AI and its implications for non-human animals and humans, as well as the fears of catastrophic risks and consequences, are they valid? Of course, yes, they are. But for me, I want to draw a kind of humanist line across the thoughts of Singer, Dawkins, and the rest by noting that the whole issue boils down to this: how does AI, or how do emerging technologies, make us better, even in our judgments?

A lot of people fear that some of these technologies will be quite intrusive, or that they could give power to those who might know everything about us while we know little about them. But as we are at the moment, do we always make the best decisions? The answer is no.

We still make “wrong” decisions without AI. So the concern we should always have is this: how will AI and other emerging technologies help us make better decisions? A lot of people who are sentenced to death may not have committed murder. Sometimes they are sentenced to death in countries where the death penalty exists because of wrongful judgments, because of how the judges or jurors who considered the matter pieced together the evidence before them.

If we had AI or other advanced technologies, perhaps they could help us make better decisions and save lives. Imagine the number of people who have been wrongfully executed in countries for crimes they did not commit. Imagine that today.

Imagine the number of people who have been killed as a result of stray bullets. So it is important for us to highlight the potential catastrophic consequences for humanity and the world as a result of AI and emerging technologies. But we should not rule out the fact that, even where we are now, without these technologies, we are not necessarily in a good place.

We still commit a lot of harm and atrocities. We still make appalling judgments. We convict innocent people. We execute people for crimes they never committed. We have civilians targeted and killed by people who mistake them for criminals. We make so many bad judgments with catastrophic consequences in our everyday lives without these technologies.

So we should concentrate on how we can utilize these technologies to improve our judgment, to make ourselves better, make our lives better, improve well-being, and carry out tasks with greater precision.

Let me give you an example. Many of us apply for visas to Canada, as I did recently. Somebody sits somewhere, looks at the documents, identifies a pattern, rejects the application, and tells you, “I am not convinced you are going to come back.” And you ask yourself, how does this person know?

The person looks at your documents. They do not have access to your mind or know your intentions. Meanwhile, you do not plan to remain in that country. You plan to go there, finish your program, and come back. But somebody looks at the documents and denies you a visa. Many thousands of people are denied visas to countries such as Canada over the years.

Somebody somewhere looks at the documents or your bank account and thinks that you do not have enough money in your account, so you cannot come to Canada. Meanwhile, you have your tickets and the money you need to spend during that period. So even without this technology, we make appalling judgments.

You understand? We need help. So we should think about how we can tap into these technologies to improve our judgments.

By improving these judgments, we can become fairer and more just, improve our lives, and reduce suffering. A lot of people suffer as a result of the bad judgments of others.

If we can imagine technology helping people make better judgments and reduce suffering, then, of course, I am all for it.

Jacobsen: I think that is it for this session. Leo, thank you again.

Igwe: Bye.

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Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a Writer and Editor for The Good Men Project with more than 2,000 publications on the platform. He is the Founder and Publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343; 978-1-0673505) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN, 0018-7399; Online: ISSN, 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), Humanist Perspectives (ISSN: 1719-6337), A Further Inquiry (SubStack), Vocal, Medium, The New Enlightenment Project, The Washington Outsider, rabble.ca, and other media. His bibliography index can be found via the Jacobsen Bank at In-Sight Publishing comprised of more than 10,000 articles, interviews, and republications, in more than 200 outlets. He has served in national and international leadership roles within humanist and media organizations, held several academic, media, and research institution fellowships, and currently serves on numerous international boards. He is a member in good standing in numerous media organizations, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, PEN Canada (CRA: 88916 2541 RR0001), and Reporters Without Borders (SIREN: 343 684 221/SIRET: 343 684 221 00041/EIN: 20-0708028), and others.