Growth & Jobs | Artificial intelligence to transform the future of work

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) is no longer science fiction.

Evolving at an unprecedented pace, AI allows machines to simulate human intelligence and cognitive processes to solve problems. The goal is to develop an intelligent system that can perform complex tasks.

With AI poised to alter the landscape of work and society, as automation replaces certain tasks, some Caribbean experts are calling for the development of policies and frameworks to safeguard workplaces against the potential disruptions.

Former head of the School of Information and Technology at the University of Technology (UTech), Professor Paul Golding, said there is need for policies to address AI’s effect on vulnerable groups, including women, who, he said, will be disproportionately affected by the technology.

“Most of the jobs that would be impacted by AI are jobs that women do,” he contended.

“The majority of homes in Jamaica, or maybe about 50 per cent, are female-led homes, and if females are disproportionally impacted by the use of AI, it is going to have a multiplier effect because female-led homes usually have children ... so they’re dependents,” he pointed out.

Professor Golding was addressing a recent Organisation Development (OD) conference at the Terra Nova All-Suite Hotel in Kingston under the theme ‘Beyond Tomorrow: OD as Leverage in the Era of AI and Society 5.0’.

Director of AI, analytics, and automation at Incus Services Ltd, Leslie Lee Fook, underscored the importance of taking AI seriously, noting that there are no limits to its capabilities.

“There is no financial barrier, no technology in terms of learning barrier, no knowledge barriers, and that’s why this ... is here to stay,” he said.

Highly skilled professionals

“Now it’s doing highly skilled, creative tasks that are replacing highly skilled professionals, even in niche industries,” Fook said, pointing out that surgeries can be done remotely.

He supports the need for a framework to cultivate and deploy investments in AI.

This framework, he said, would foster an understanding of AI’s potential for implementation and the development of strategies to invest in high-yield projects that deliver rapid returns and capitalise on successes.

The Planning Institute of Jamaica’s Programme Director, Vision 2030 Jamaica Secretariat, Peisha Bryan-Lee, in her remarks, noted that technology crosscuts all the 15 national outcomes in the Vision 2030 National Development Plan towards achieving “a technology-enabled society” with “internationally competitive industry structures”.

The conference, put on by the Caribbean Centre for Organisation Development Excellence Ltd, targeted organisation development professionals, information technology professionals, and management and workers in the public sector.