The Artificial Intelligence question

It may well be there are teams of expert public servants quietly locked away at ministry engine rooms, and activists associated with political organisations contemplating issues of technological change and its impacts on national development.

For, it is evident that none of it is currently being captured in the public dialogue of our politicians of all persuasions, even when scrupulously guided on public policy by senior civil servants, paid advisors, and otherwise smart people.

Neither is there proof, through action, that basic entry into the digital realities of the modern world is being embraced as an unavoidable step in the development process.

And, why not the platforms accorded local government contestants, to cite one example? What else do political organisations do to display relevance to increasingly challenging global circumstances?

Yes, this is me; yet again lamenting the painful lack of progress on basic digitalisation of public transactions, and even more than that, tracking the most recent developments associated with the emergence of Generative AI (Artificial Intelligence) as a feature of current realities.

So, this is much more than digital ED cards for international travel, or online payment portals, or digitised official documentation and processes for procuring them. There are smaller regional neighbours who have detected positive implications regarding the cost of such transactions.

For expert instruction, there are journalists such as Mark Lyndersay who scan the minutiae of technological possibilities for evidence of public understanding on such matters. He is likely to agree with me that our shortcomings extend as much to private entrepreneurial limitations as they do with respect to undeniable official, public sector resistance to change.

On Monday, I received a report released by the International Labour Organization (ILO) analysing the “potential exposure of occupations and tasks to Generative AI.” I wondered then, what was the likely contribution of the social partners in the sphere of labour rights in T&T to this discussion. What are their views, if any?

Could it be that the PSA or OWTU or TTALPA had provided informed comment arising out of their understanding of the impact of this emerging platform on jobs and employment possibilities? Perhaps they have deployed member financial contributions to closely examine what becomes of occupations and tasks in the public service, the energy sector, and in aviation?

Are there folks at the Ministry of Labour currently engaged in reconciling ILO observations regarding the “exposure” of clerical workers in all sectors to adjustments in job quality and quantity?

How is the Ministry of Digital Transformation interpreting the anticipated calibrations throughout all sectors of the public sector?

Don’t get me wrong, operating in the Caribbean regional space entitles me to record similar observations on a wider scale – among them being the fact that public service resistance and private sector lethargy are strong features of the move to embrace digitalisation in almost all its aspects, and there is virtually nothing happening when it comes to anticipating Generative AI impacts.

It is not that we are all ignoring the signs. The more developed sectors of the regional media industry, for instance, are already (slowly) stepping into the frame.

At the Media Institute of the Caribbean (MIC), whenever AI enters the discourse, there have been found to be quite enlightened reflections on opportunities and challenges. Not enough, yet though. Legacy media are already among the most affected, if only due to the pervasive impacts of social media.

Back to the ILO study, there is acknowledgment of wide areas of variability, but great value in the way it explores general principles required to head-off net negative effects.

For one, governments and their social partners such as unions, business chambers, and employers’ organisations need to jointly and proactively design “policies that support orderly, fair, and consultative transitions, rather than dealing with change in a reactive manner.”

“Moreover,” the report says, “the likely ramifications on job quality might be of greater consequence than the quantitative impacts, both with respect to the new jobs created because of the technology, but also the potential effects on work intensity and autonomy when the technology is integrated into the workplace.”

Last Monday, the international NGO, Digital Communication Network (DCN) Global, also hosted an online session on Information as a Public Good, and questions about governance and the maintenance of democratic conditions kept coming up as potential subjects and objects of technological change.

How can our policymakers (and people with an expressed interest in our future as a country) not be concerned about these things, even as a function of the way our social institutions, including political parties and sectional representatives, operate? There is sad evidence they are not.