Why Jamaica urgently needs a minister of artificial intelligence

In 2016, in a face-to-face talk, I had advised The University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona’s artificial intelligence lecturer to introduce artificial neural networks, also known as modern artificial intelligence (AI), as an independent course to the computer science degree. Artificial neural networks power many smart applications today, ranging from self-driving cars to automated disease diagnosers.

In 2016, I also began something called Machine Learning Jamaica Institute, which later, on June 2, 2018, had a free online curriculum, including a 2017 artificial intelligence book written by myself. The goal was to establish a physical building dedicated to artificial intelligence, to prepare the nation for growing automation.

Of note, this year Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, announced it would start “the world’s first University of Artificial Intelligence”, capitalising on the fact that an increasing number of countries are becoming more and more serious about artificial intelligence education.

UWI Mona gets Data Science/Modern AI Course

In September 2018, UWI, Mona, introduced COMP3162, a data science course, along with a master of science in data science. Data science involves taking machine learning models, including artificial neural networks, to extract insight from data or information. Many artificial intelligence start-ups have emerged with large usage of data science.

With the advent of this course, UWI, Mona, is further helping to continue to propel the nation into the 21st century. A number of students have, as expected, already gone through the course since its inception. More people interested in computer science should go and take the course now.

Results from failure to focus on AI, by the numbers

Notably, one forecast via BBC News and McKinsey Global Institute, places 800 million jobs to be lost to automation up until the year 2030. Another forecast by Bank of America has 800 million jobs to be lost up until year 2035. In the United States alone, four million jobs have already been automated away in recent years. In Canada, in November, 27,500 manufacturing jobs were lost.

Of note, automation has already destroyed 20 million jobs in a select number of regions, according to Econlib.

Ministry of AI of Jamaica required, and why STEM schools without AI focus may not be sufficient

In November 2019, in response to growing automation, Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced the construction of six STEM schools in conjunction with China’s aid. STEM schools without focus on artificial intelligence (AI) may not be sufficient, because even STEM careers without AI focus are being automated away today. For example, there are smart apps that are better than humans at disease diagnosis.

As I came up with the idea of adding a minister of AI to Jamaica’s political portfolio some months ago, it was reassuring to later discover that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has had a minister of state of artificial intelligence since 2017, the first and only other nation with this portfolio to date. Jamaica is not as wealthy as the UAE, but the Caribbean nation is more than qualified, economically, to further make use of artificial intelligence. Take, for example, a single person from Japan utilising AI to increase profit at his parent’s cucumber farm.

A portfolio separate from the broad Ministry of Technology needs be created, so that individuals may take on pressing automation-based endeavours. The minister of AI of Jamaica should reasonably intimately understand how these smart applications work, and understand the implications of automation/AI, and perform actions like pushing for facilities like Machine Learning Jamaica Institute to exist.

Jordan Micah Bennett is a AI software developer and author of the NVIDIA-featured, AI-based pothole detector.