The digital gap

So, here I am yet again - digitalisation and technology and our refusal as a nation to embrace prospective benefits.

If you have been following this constant refrain over the years (no, I was not silent about it “for nine and a half years”) you would know that I have been consistently calling out the gross negligence.

I have not been alone, and I won’t call any other name but that of my media colleague, Mark Lyndersay, who has repeatedly (and in vain) pointed to the shortcomings in our own embattled sector and the penalties we have already begun to pay.

So, this is not about everybody else except us. All ah we falling short. As a sexagenarian journalism educator, I am also acutely mindful of the fact that the current digital generation is eons ahead of the outgoing analogue ruling class but pay a heavy price through derision and scorn for their psycho-social assets.

This is particularly so when those in charge are called upon to grasp the requirements of tools associated with intelligent automation, of which generative AI is but one component.

Routinely and incorrectly described as “AI,” intelligent automation is the banner under which much of current technical innovation resides, including “AI”, machine learning, and data analytics.

I am employing time and space to get to the point, because decision-makers often appear ignorant of the fact that discrete tools of significant value are not standalone features of the process of automation.

Past understanding of this has meant that there are no government ministries of hammers and screwdrivers. We have had, instead, ministries and agencies charged with developing specific infrastructure – houses, roads, and buildings – the end products or aspirations.

In the current context, the world has also gone beyond basic mechanisation, electrification, and early digital automation. Enter 70-year-old “artificial intelligence” as an enhanced tool of automation with generative capacity, but not as an end in itself.

See where I’m going with this technology thing? As a related aside, let me point to one of my several peeves. It’s Wednesday today, and by now I would have completed a silly little form presented to exiting air travellers.

It is a form minus a field I have had to use my pen to complete because somebody in authority, and lacking self-esteem, thought that this piece of paper needs the expiry date on my passport (which is already right there in my airline booking, by the way … and on the passport you just swiped on your machine!!!).

If I had the space here, you have been able to see (on an AI-generated diagram I have created) where that piece of paper resides along the evolutionary chain of automated processes. This is like driving a steam-powered car. Watching TV without a remote. Calculating a bill with an abacus.

If it is of any comfort, we are not the only ones finding comfort lodged in the sewer line of the obsolete. In fact, there are other countries that (legitimately) have the arguments of limited virtual and power infrastructure, prohibitive costs, socio-cultural obstacles, language constraints, and systemic economic circumstances that prohibit progress to new levels.

Then there are those, like us, that trail behind on account of glaring policy and regulatory gaps, trust deficits particularly by those in charge, and resistance to change by key operatives.

I happen to believe the latter condition applies both to the state and private sectors. We should all by now be brutally aware of the attractive digital facades that skilfully mask manual backends … complete with pens, pencils, and paper.

It is thus not encouraging in the context of all of this, to hear of what appear to be belated learnings, leading to official excitement, on the need for “technology” in policing, or that “national identification” is to be deployed in their current static manifestations as an instrument to assist in monitoring citizen activity. 

The thing is, that for official policy to be data-driven and scientific in the modern era, there needs to be a high number of readily available, digitally generated datasets focused on the issue being addressed. Or else all you have is vaps and arbitrariness … or the least reliable quality of all – political intuition compulsively subject to folly and prejudice.

So, yes, there is a connection between our general tardiness when it comes to engaging technological transitions, and decision-making based on reliable, scientific information.

If you are catching my drift, this is all linked to the form they hand you on the plane upon your return. It’s also relevant to the mysterious gap between 21 and 25-year-olds. Think about it. Please!