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.
