Brilla AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) system, which unofficially competed with the three schools participating in the grand finale of the 2023 National Science and Maths Quiz, answered a riddle correctly ahead of the contestants.

The Brilla AI built by Kwame AI - an AI start-up - battled remotely with undisputed champions, PRESEC- Legon, Achimota School, and Opoku Ware School, at the riddles round of the final contest.

The Scientists set out to develop the artificial intelligence to battle contestants in the 30-year-old quiz.

Consisting of four distinct machine-learning systems (across NLP, speech processing, and Generative AI), the Brilla AI attempts to quickly and accurately provide an answer to a question with a Ghanaian accent in real time.

The app transcribes the voice of the quiz moderator into texts, lists the clues from the texts, which are then forwarded to the questions and answering feature of the app.

The AI then converts the answer to speech, replying the riddle in a Ghanaian accent.

The open-source project seeks to explore the potential of artificial intelligence in the national competition and in the education sector.

It would ensure equitable and universal access to quality education in line with goal 4 of the UN Sustainable Developmental Goals.

The lead of the project, Dr. George Jojo Boateng explained that the AI answered one out of the four riddles.

“First riddle, it couldn’t detect the start of the riddle and so didn’t extract the clues from the transcript. Second riddle, it detected the start and extracted the clues from the transcript but attempted too early and got it wrong. Third riddle, a similar story - it attempted too early and got it wrong.

“Then came the last riddle at which point our real-time transcription was lagging the video. It detected the start of the riddle, couldn't extract clue one, but extracted the second clue and third clue, and then answered correctly before the student answered correctly,” he said.

Jojo Boateng is however, upbeat about the potential of the technology.

“Now, if every school had access to this AI technology that could enable unlimited preparation sessions, we can truly democratize NSMQ preparation, and more broadly science education across Ghana, and eventually enable millions across Africa to have one-on-one learning interactions,” Joojo added.