As both a business person and someone who teaches commerce at a tertiary level I’m still struggling with the overall benefit of Artificial Intelligence for society at large. This is my perspective on AI at this point in its roll-out…

1.    It will mainly benefit employers.

2.    It is being used/ looked at closely by business owners as a way of negating or reducing employee engagement.

3.    It is being viewed by employers as a way of avoiding the complexities of people management and having to fulfill employment related legislative requirements.

4.    Ongoing changes to employment law in favour of employees (e.g. rising minimum wage) is contributing greatly to employers engaging AI to perform as many functions as possible that a person would otherwise perform.

5.    It will produce certain efficiencies; in terms of achieving greater accuracy and a reduction in defect levels and time required to carry-out a task.

6.    It will result in a reduction in employment opportunities overall in society.

7.    It will cause the greatest reduction in employment opportunities in relation to the primary sector – a sector which until now has looked to employ people who are (for the most part) neither highly trained/ educated (i.e. tertiary qualified) nor technically orientated/ qualified.

 

And it is this last point that creates most concern within me. Why ?

If we remove or significantly reduce employment opportunities what on earth are these people going to do with their lives ? How are they going to sustain themselves and their families, and where are they going to gain a sense of “life purpose” from ?

Implications of people feeling disengaged and without purpose ?

* Sense of being under-valued – or worse still valueless.

* Sense of being denied the opportunity to contribute constructively to society.

* Sense of being disconnected from society – reduced sense of belonging.

* Sense of being denied the opportunity to help others – for people to “give” of themselves to others.

* Increase in the incidence of mental disorders.

* Reduction in the opportunity for students to reduce tertiary debt (due to reduced employment opportunities) – and therefore a reduced incentive to undertake tertiary studies in the first place. Result ? Reduction in the overall number of tertiary qualified (highly educated) people in the world. Implications ? Reduced pool of highly skilled labour.

* Increase in relationship dysfunctionality due to stress caused by economic/ financial hardship…which could also mean an increase in violence and other crime.

 

Where do I sit in relation to the virtues of AI ? Overall, at this stage I am not a proponent/ advocate of it at all in respect of certain sectors (the primary sector most of all); because I can see that the benefits from its use will relate to a minority only and it has the potential to exasperate unwanted undesirable behaviours in society.