Occasional Paper 10/2024
Copyright © 2024
Inclusive Society Institute
PO Box 12609
Mill Street
Cape Town, 8010
South Africa
235-515 NPO
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means without the permission in writing from the Inclusive Society Institute.
DISCLAIMER
Views expressed in this report do not necessarily represent the views of the
Inclusive Society Institute or those of their respective Board or Council members.
D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 4
Lars Gumede
BCom (Actuarial Science)
Picture: istockphoto.com, Stock photo ID: 1483013789
Abstract
At its core the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution represents a period of exponentially increasing technological advancement. However, the future of AI is a human question more than a technological one – of how we deal with its rapid transformation of society. Companies are rushing to integrate AI into their systems to capitalize on its potential for greater efficiency, accuracy and cost-effectiveness. But there is also potentially a dark side to AI. For low- and middle-income countries, it will either mean economic salvation or continued stagnation. Large corporations will be forced to follow global corporate trends – automating as many jobs as possible and investing in reskilling the remaining workforce. Other companies may give up competing globally, compensated by government to artificially keep job numbers up.
Of course, the AI revolution also represents the opportunity to solve pressing issues: climate change, world hunger, the fight for resources. Global trends indicate a net loss to jobs in the short term, but long term, new industries will create more jobs and grow the world economy. For South Africa, the opportunity exists for radical growth. If proper investment is made in digital infrastructure, AI hubs and innovation, education and reskilling and in using AI to boost its strategic opportunities, there is no limit to the success we may see. If, on the other hand, we neglect our responsibility to build, learn and ensure that the country thrives, South Africa will see increased strife in the form of unemployment, crime, economic stagnation and inequality.
Introduction
The Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution will have more significant consequences than the Industrial Revolution and Internet Age. The potential of this revolution is unquantifiable even for the best experts and researchers in the field. Artificial Intelligence and the hunt for Digital Superintelligence will spark exponential technological development culminating in the ‘technological singularity’ – the point at which technology is advancing at such a fast rate that the human mind can no longer comprehend.
Before that though, there will be wide-ranging effects on the world economy, social cohesion and our systems of organizing ourselves. As new breakthroughs occur every day, it becomes increasingly essential to understand AI and its potential for upheaval, as it creates the potential for salvation or damnation for companies, countries, individuals and organizations alike.
It is no surprise then that companies are rushing to integrate AI into their systems to capitalize on the power of AI to increasingly accomplish human tasks with much greater efficiency, accuracy and cost-effectiveness. These integrations are projected to automate 43% of all job tasks by 2027, according to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report (2023). Corresponding to 83 million jobs eliminated in easily automated areas such as data entry, bookkeeping and other repetitive administrative roles (WEF, 2023).
Governments are rushing to put together regulations to deal with potential societal upheaval as well as implement AI systems into their own organizations to increase efficiency. Civil society organizations and think-tanks are contemplating social safety nets such as Universal Basic Income to compensate for lost jobs.
Jobs that are not lost can expect to be radically transformed as integrations with AI transform every job into a management role overseeing an AI tool that automates mundane, repetitive and programmable tasks.
There also exists the potential for entirely new jobs in entirely new industries. These opportunities require adaptive and informed citizens in order to smoothly move into this new world. Sixty-nine million jobs are expected to be created due to new technologies by 2027 – below the number of jobs lost. Resulting in a net loss to jobs of 2% globally by 2027 (WEF, 2023).
This will have impacts on social cohesion and necessitates countries establishing comprehensive social safety nets, warns Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (2024). Of course, such governmental measures are tall asks, particularly for developing nations. This will generally worsen global inequality between countries and within countries as the benefits of technological development most often go to capital owners and highly skilled labour (Moll, Rachel & Restrepo, 2022).
In South Africa, a country already dealing with high inequality, unemployment and social tensions, the effects will be even more extreme. Large companies will be forced to take harsh decisions – implementing AI systems and replacing human jobs. Only then will they be able to compete globally against companies operating in highly efficient markets who will act with great haste and ruthlessness.
Government will find itself under increased pressure from the resulting social unrest and may be forced to guarantee jobs – which if implemented well could see incredible innovation and growth. It could also spell total disaster, if government measures to protect jobs clash with the requirements of businesses in order to compete globally.
Of course, the AI revolution also represents opportunities unlike any humanity has seen in its history. The potential exists for a world in which increased productivity and technological advancement allows humanity to solve such pressing issues as climate change, world hunger and the fight for resources.
There exists a huge opportunity to supercharge the economy and create new jobs in new industries. To capitalize on this opportunity, the country must do certain basic things such as invest in digital infrastructure, AI innovation and entrepreneurship, reskilling and education as well as specific strategies to boost national assets and opportunities.
There is also a need for unconventional local-focused strategies such as a national online AI education platform, a national public data repository to allow all to create AI systems targeting South African issues and challenges, and lastly, a national AI venture fund is needed to support South African entrepreneurs and promote AI-based economic growth.
These opportunities will be grasped by forward thinking countries, companies, individuals and organizations. In order to compete, a full understanding of the future of AI and its potential is needed.
What is AI – and what is its current state?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to computer systems and related machinery that are able to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence such as classification, natural language generation and interpretation of text and speech.
The field of study of AI has been around for nearly a century. British scientist Alan Turing, in 1950, developed the ‘Turing Test’ as a way of evaluating whether a machine could think. The latest breakthroughs that have taken the world by storm are in the form of Large Language Models (LLMs), the most well-known being the GPT models of OpenAI (Goldstein & Kirk-Giannini, 2023).
The ‘ChatGPT’ interface by OpenAI provides a user-friendly way to interact with the world’s most advanced AI. The latest models can analyze text, images and video; write working code as well as pass professional tests and exams with flying colours – scoring in the 90th percentile on the SAT (OpenAI, 2024).
LLMs are neural networks that can understand and generate human (natural) language. These models are trained on large quantities of text on the internet such as books, articles and scientific papers. By processing this data, the models are able to produce coherent text relevant to the input it receives (IBM, 2024).
When one puts a question to an LLM, it uses the patterns and knowledge from its training data to generate responses. By analyzing patterns in the language used in its training data, one can converse with it as one would with any real person. These systems are referred to as Generative AI (GenAI) systems as they generate text from some input.
While OpenAI led the charge with its GenAI offerings, today there exists proprietary models from most large technology companies as well as a large ecosystem of open-source models which are just as advanced and available for anybody to use in their own projects.
Developments in AI will continue as models get larger, more powerful processors are developed and more money enters the space. The stated goal of the AI heavyweights such as OpenAI and Meta is to build Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). AGI being a level of AI that surpasses human capabilities, and that could in theory take over all strenuous and arduous tasks.
Of course, there is much debate as to whether the achievement of AGI will bring about utopia or dystopia. As with all things it will likely be somewhere in the middle, as better technology has solved many human problems – conversely, we are still saddled with many problems that we have the technology to fix. The future of the world of AI depends on how we adopt this new technology.
Global Adoption of AI – Its Effect on Employment
Private Sector
The breakthroughs in AI are rapidly transforming various sectors of society. The availability of custom models, abundance of data and global connectivity mean companies are racing to integrate AI into their systems. According to a McKinsey Global Survey, 65% of respondents say their organization is regularly using AI (Chui et al., 2024).
Automation of Jobs by AI
In Finance, JP Morgan Chase is using AI for fraud detection, risk management and the reviewing of legal documents with their Contract Intelligence (COiN) platform (JP Morgan Chase, 2024).
German giant Siemens is using its AI platform MindSphere to analyze the data from its connected machinery in order to reduce downtime and optimize manufacturing processes (Siemens, 2024). Tesla’s Autopilot system uses AI to control its self-driving cars. Google’s AI optimization tools have reduced the tech giant’s energy consumption by 40% across its data centres by predicting cooling needs.
Mining conglomerate Rio Tinto has been working on AI-driven automation for more than a decade. The company’s Iron Ore business unit operates AutoHaul, a long-distance railway system that is fully autonomous – a world first. The company operates 200 autonomous locomotives on 1700km of railway. By eliminating the need for drivers and the associated costs, the company has significantly improved safety and efficiency. New productivity schemes across its $50 billion portfolio generated $5 billion of additional free cash flow in 2021 (Rio Tinto, 2021).
Swedish fintech company Klarna has introduced an AI customer service agent that handles two-thirds of its customer service chats. The system is “designed to enhance the shopping and payments experience for Klarna’s 150 million consumers worldwide” (Klarna, 2024).
Its system handles the equivalent of 700 full-time customer service agents. The system is more accurate than human agents – with a 25% drop in repeat inquiries and has reduced the average query resolution time from 11 minutes to 2 minutes. It has capabilities that cannot be matched by human agents. It is available 24 hours a day, in 23 markets and can communicate in 35 languages. This AI system brought a $40 million USD profit improvement to the group in 2024 (Klarna, 2024).
This system, which was a result of a joint experiment by Klarna and OpenAI, will likely become the industry standard globally in the coming years. This is significant as the global customer service market is valued at roughly $9 billion and is predicted to reach $82 billion in revenue by 2025 (Forbes, 2024). Moreover, bad customer service is estimated to cost global markets $3.7 trillion annually. The millions employed in the customer service industry will increasingly see themselves being replaced by much cheaper, effective and secure AI systems.
While Klarna is an early adopter of these technologies and it may seem natural for a technology company to be heavily automated, these changes will soon be seen worldwide. The Future of Jobs Report compiled by the World Economic Forum in 2023 found that by 2027, 43% of all work tasks will be automated – an increase from 34% in 2022. Faster than expected automation is estimated to displace 83 million jobs in the next five years. The jobs most at risk are highly repetitive administrative tasks such as bookkeeping, data entry, accounting and other administrative and secretarial work (WEF, 2023).
More generally, job losses will primarily be low-skilled jobs as a study of Taiwan’s electronics industry found that AI innovations favour high-skilled labour – reducing the share of the workforce who hold college level educational qualifications and lower (Yang, 2022).
A survey of 2000 corporate executives, conducted by Swiss staffing firm Adecco Group, found that 41% of executives polled expect to employ fewer people due to AI. Furthermore, 80% of business executives are actively accelerating their plans to integrate AI systems and deploy new technologies (WEF, 2020).
Globally, AI systems are being tested with great success in performing human tasks. These successful tests will prompt full-scale replacements in the years to come. It is not only blue-collar jobs and highly repetitive tasks that are at risk of replacement. Rapid technological development means that “AI is coming for the jobs that were supposed to be automation-proof”, according to Sarah T. Roberts, associate professor at the University of California in Los Angeles (Verma & De Vynck, 2023).
The IMF estimates that 40% of all jobs are exposed due to AI – meaning the jobs will either be lost or radically transformed, requiring reskilling or repurposing (Georgieva, 2024).
Scientists are increasingly finding that Large Language Models are capable of surprising levels of creative production and could target even the most intellectually demanding jobs. So complex are the largest models that scientists and researchers are studying them like they would strange natural phenomena – experimenting and trying to explain the results (Heaven, 2024). There is thus no way of knowing to what extent AI will replace jobs or even which jobs are safe.
Opportunities for Reskilling
While job losses are inevitable, there are huge opportunities for reskilling workers to be productive in conjunction with advanced AI systems. Where jobs are not lost, they will certainly be transformed and will look quite different than they do now. A study by the Harvard Business Review found that the average half-life of skills is now less than five years and in the technology industry it is less than three years (Harvard Business Review, 2023).
The figure below, illustrated the extent to which the labour market will be impacted by the AI revolution. Together, 61% of jobs will require reskilling or redeployment by 2027, according to the Future of Jobs Report of the World Economic Forum (2023).
Upskilling and Reskilling Outlook, 2023-2027, by workforce fraction
Figure 1: Upskilling and reskilling outlook, 2023-2027. Graph adapted from WEF Future of Jobs Report 2023 (WEF, 2023).
Companies are therefore investing more than ever before in internal training and retraining – roughly 1.5% of the total budget among large companies, according to a Boston Consulting Group study (Goel & Kovács-Ondrejkovic, 2023). Investment in reskilling workers for this new world is essential, as the World Economic Forum estimates that over half of the global population requires new skills to stay ahead of technology-driven change. That figure could climb to 90% by 2030 as current skills become increasingly obsolete.
Telecommunications giant AT&T, released in their 2022 ESG summary the fruits of the company’s new Real Time Training Program created to upskill its employees. During the year 2021, almost 2 000 employees received real-time tutorial recommendations, resulting in 4 300 new customers and nearly a $5 million increase in annual revenue. In the program the company “identifies who needs training and when, as well as which training solution is most likely to drive the greatest performance improvement”.
In 2023, pharmaceutical giant Moderna undertook a massive reskilling and modernization program affecting all aspects of its business. Partnering with OpenAI, it has deployed ChatGPT Enterprise to thousands of its employees (OpenAI, 2024).
“We’re looking at every business process—from legal, to research, to manufacturing, to commercial—and thinking about how to redesign them with AI,” said Stephane Bancel, Moderna’s CEO. The company is seeking to bring 15 new mRNA medicines to market in the next five years by supercharging its development cycle. Moderna set out to achieve a “100% adoption and proficiency” of generative AI by all its employees. To do this, the company assembled a dedicated team of experts who created personalized AI learning companions augmented by group research and training exercises.
The company’s internal AI chatbot, mChat, has been adopted by 80% of the company’s workforce and has 2 000 active weekly participants in its AI forum. After months of usage, the average user has 120 conversations with AI per week – boosting knowledge and productivity at all levels.
“If we had to do it the old biopharmaceutical ways, we might need 100 000 people today,” explained Bancel. Utilizing advanced AI systems, a few thousand people can perform like a team of 100 000 (Moderna, 2024). This corporate architecture supercharged by AI allowed Moderna to ready its COVID-19 vaccine for human trials in just 42 days (Pomeroy, 2023).
Projected job creation and displacement, 2023-2027
Figure 2: Projected job creation and displacement, 2023-2027. Graph adapted from WEF Future of Jobs Report 2023 (WEF, 2023).
In the near future (next five years), there will be job losses of around 83 million. Near-term job creation is expected to total 69 million – created by new technologies and industries, according to a World Economic Forum report (2023). This estimate gives a net loss of 14 million jobs worldwide by 2027 – which corresponds to a global workforce cut of 2% (WEF, 2023). In the long term, by orders of magnitude more jobs are likely to be created by entirely new industries (JP Morgan, 2024). However, long-term estimates are difficult due to the rapid nature of technological advancements and their effects.
The private sector has obviously been faster to adopt new AI systems but worldwide, public sector organizations are also adopting these systems to boost their productivity and efficiency.
Public Sector
Just as companies are racing to integrate AI into their systems, so too are proactive governments and public sector entities. In the public sector, AI is being used on four primary issues (OECD, 2023):
Effectiveness of Policymaking
Efficiency of Operations
Improved Accountability
Responsiveness
Public Sector AI Opportunities
Figure 3: Public Sector AI Opportunities – generated by author.
Policymaking
AI enables effective and objective policymaking. Sophisticated systems are able to ingest large volumes of data and produce policy recommendations at great scale, efficiency and at low cost. However, only 30% of countries have adopted AI for policymaking, according to the 2023 OECD Digital Government Index (OECD, 2023).
Use cases include budget management to analyze spending and income data, fraud and corruption prevention, anticipating budget deviations and emergencies and many more.
The largest use case for AI in guiding policymaking is in analyzing large quantities of data to better understand the needs of the population and identify patterns to make more effective decisions. In the Netherlands, an AI system was introduced in Nijmegen municipality to monitor the number of and activities of people in the city centre. Analyzing the traffic, movement and economic data of the city allows policymakers and officials to make better decisions involving city planning, road safety, municipal services as well as entrepreneurial and business support.
“We can now also predict how busy it is in places where there are no sensors,” says Paul Geurts, strategic information adviser at the municipality of Nijmegen. This system boosts economic development by creating better decision-making at the municipal level (Geurts, 2024).
In South Korea, the Disease Control and Prevention Agency developed an AI system to address crises involving emerging infectious diseases. The system analyzes medical, quarantine, spatial and population data to develop strategies and protocols for responses to infectious diseases (Ubaldi & Zapata, 2024).
AI can be used to analyze and predict the environmental effects of current or prospective public projects. In France, AI was used to build a digital simulation of the Paris-Saclay municipality which is used to simulate the management of large projects. Officials are able to predict energy needs, environmental and financial impacts as well as ordinarily unexpected challenges and setbacks (Paris-Saclay, 2023).
Operational Efficiency
Most deployments of AI by the public sector are done in order to improve efficiency of operations and service delivery. This has been done by nearly 70% of countries analyzed by the OECD’s 2023 Digital Government Report (OECD, 2024).
In Sweden, an AI system was developed by the Companies Registration Office that automatically sorts 60% of its incoming emails. This system reads the emails, understands the content and then forwards it to the appropriate department in the office. Every day the authority receives approximately 500 emails that would ordinarily require multiple dedicated employees to handle. To modernize the authority’s operations, a dedicated AI hub was set up, which birthed this AI email sorter. The team leading this AI initiative is currently working to expand the system, with the final goal of automatically resolving all queries without the involvement of any staff members (Bolagsverket, 2023).
France has developed and deployed a much larger model in its national government. The Interministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs launched an AI system named Albert that helps public service agents better respond to online queries. French Prime Minster Gabriel Attal declared the system will “de-bureaucratize the administration and simplify everyday life” (Attal, 2024).
‘Albert’ has been deployed in various areas of the French administration. The system manages court hearings, detects forest fires, manages human resources and automates medical reports, to name but a few of its use cases (Cirou, 2024). Another of Albert’s jobs is to answer questions posed to all government departments. For example, French tax agents receive around 16 million queries per year. Albert, with its database, knowledgebase and ability to understand and respond to questions, will automatically satisfy these queries or forward them to the relevant departments (RFI, 2024). The system is even able to ‘pre-instruct’ regional environmental directorates on the 4 000 environmental project proposals they receive each year and has detected nearly 150 000 cases of fraud for local tax authorities.
Additionally, a new AI system called ‘Aristotle’, which focuses on education, will soon be deployed nationally to modernize the French education system. ‘Aristotle’ will be a digital tutor, provide quizzes and assessments as well as convert lecture videos and materials into disability-friendly format (Cirou, 2024).
As illustrated, the potential for AI to improve the efficiency of government operations whilst radically cutting costs is immense.
Public Accountability
Another important use case of AI is in promoting public accountability and transparency of government. AI has been successfully tested by tax and procurement authorities in order to detect fraud, limit corruption and manage risk (OECD, 2024).
In Brazil, the General Controllership of the Union developed an AI system to curb procurement fraud and corruption. The system called the Analyzer of Biddings, Contracts and Notices (ALICE) automatically analyzes data and recommends action related to public procurement. ALICE collects data related to ongoing and past procurement contracts on the various federal Government procurement platforms. The system will analyze a potential contract and its facts and alert auditors and officials to suspicious and unusual cases (Oliveira at al., 2022).
ALICE scrutinized nearly 200 000 purchasing processes in 2023. Investigations based on the alerts of the ALICE system saw the cancellation of purchases worth more than $2.08 billion (R6.7 billion (ZAR)). This advanced system is capable of such sophisticated tasks as identifying the overpricing of products and services, unnecessary contracting and conflicts of interests (Gov.br, 2024).
Advanced AI systems can play a crucial role in enhancing oversight and accountability in the public sector – providing objective and transparent analysis that can be used to monitor all areas of government spending.
Responsiveness
The final major use case of AI in the public sector relates to responsiveness – specifically improving service delivery by responding to the feedback of the population. Responsiveness to feedback has been found to be directly related to quality of services provided (OECD, 2013).
In Finland, the government created the AuroraAI program to analyze which public services are well-received and well-administered and which are poorly received. The project forms part of the Finnish drive to digitalize all public services. AuroraAI functions as a network connecting citizens to the most relevant services, with the aim of “making everyday life and business easier”, according to (now former) Prime Minister Sanna Marin (European Parliament, 2024).
Around the world governments are utilizing AI to improve the lives of their people. The potential for huge improvements in efficiency, accountability, responsiveness and decision-making exists and is being explored by forward-thinking government entities.
Regulatory Challenges & Development Consequences
The most important impact of the AI revolution will be on the rate of change of technological development. The acceleration of innovation across all fields of science will bring about massive changes to all aspects of our lives and the world.
New systems will boost productivity globally and may herald a new era in which humanity can focus on issues greater than wars and strife. Of course, today there already exists the tools to solve most practical problems, yet problems abound.
It is thus a human question; one of human organization. Many will prosper, namely large asset owners, forward facing companies and countries. Many will no doubt be left behind just as today 700 million people globally live in extreme poverty (World Bank, 2024).
The IMF projects 40% of the world’s jobs are at risk due to AI, some to replacement and others to augmentation (Georgieva, 2024). This will necessitate well-thought-out and put-together social safety nets to support acceptable standards of living. However, there will be entirely new industries created – giving rise to countless jobs.
Personal AI systems will become commonplace, which will cause inequality that goes far beyond socio-economic inequality. Persons who have access to these tools will be able to supercharge their intellect and productivity and those without access will be left behind – creating a wider and wider gap.
In developed economies, the wealthiest asset owners will continue to see the bulk of benefits. While the bottom majority will find themselves increasingly out of work or forced to reskill themselves for AI-related tasks. Globalization saw millions of jobs offshored from developed nations to developing nations; now those developed economies will lose even more jobs to AI (European Parliament, 2023). Jobs in advanced, highly efficient economies are much more exposed to AI than those in developing nations – as they are forced to adopt the latest market and productivity trends (Georgieva, 2024).
In developing nations, which rely heavily on foreign investment, jobs are not safe either. Just as companies moved their operations to the third world for cheaper labour, they will find even cheaper labour in the form of advanced AI systems. This will have serious consequences for development, as it will reduce foreign investment in these developing nations (Fan & Qiang, 2024).
This leads to the devaluing of their comparative advantages, less access to capital, worse terms of trade and will eventually further widen the gap between rich and poor countries (Boy et al., 2023). This will also have serious consequences geopolitically, as developing nations will have even less of a say in world affairs.
Lack of social cohesion and unrest will be a global phenomenon, which will come as more of a surprise to developed nations whose standards of living may see more abrupt changes. This process (which has begun already) will precipitate the rise of populist political movements, as is happening across Europe today.
In developing nations whose standards of living are low even without AI’s effects, the trends are more predictable. These nations who feel increasingly excluded from the family of developed nations will attempt to form their own trading, diplomatic and support blocks (Gumede, 2023). Groups like BRICS have expanded to 10 member nations (BRICS+) and tensions will continue to rise between the West and the rest.
Without global cooperation, meaningful AI regulation will be near impossible. Like with taxes, corporations will shop around the world for the best regulatory environment rendering any good or bad faith regulations toothless (Wheeler, 2023).
Democracy and democratic values may be perceived as being of diminishing value and utility as one relies more and more on transnational corporations and global social initiatives than one does on one’s own government.
Success in the future of AI depends primarily on:
· Digital Infrastructure: An essential foundation for an AI-powered economy.
· Skills Development & Retraining: Equipping people with the skills of the Future.
· Local AI Investment: Developing local AI industries, hubs and innovators.
· Strategic Boosters: Using AI to boost strategic opportunities and assets.
· AI Safety: Regulation to ensure safe development in national/global interest.
Development Requirements in the World of AI
Figure 4: Development Requirements (generated by author).
Continental Developments & Outlook
In May 2024, the African Union Commission released its Draft Continental Artificial Intelligence Strategy pursuant to the African Union Agenda 2063. The continental strategy aims to guide member states in achieving ‘people-centric’ and ‘development-oriented’ AI implementation.
The strategy’s focus areas are:
Maximizing AI benefits: Improving people’s livelihoods, focus on AI in agriculture, healthcare, education, public service delivery and defense.
Minimizing risks: Addressing risks involving inclusion, human rights and dignity.
Building capabilities: In infrastructure, AI talent, R&D and innovation.
Regional and international cooperation: Developing strategic partnerships.
Private/public sector investment: Encouraging massive regional investment.
Underlying the strategy is an adherence to African culture and values (African Union, 2024). The strategy goes further in stating 15 “action areas”, including but not limited to:
Establishment of appropriate regulation and governance systems.
Creating an enabling environment for AI startups.
Ensuring the availability of high-quality and diverse datasets.
Promoting AI skills and talent in schools, colleges, workspaces and among the populus.
The continental AI pioneer Mauritius published its national AI strategy in 2018 – which included countrywide research and a detailed action plan. Included in this plan was the creation of the Mauritius Artificial Intelligence Council (MAIC) – a 10-member panel tasked with facilitating the implementation of various AI projects (MAIS, 2024). This is overseen by the larger Mauritius Emerging Technologies Council (METC), whose goal is to make Mauritius a thriving tech hub.
Among the projects are:
Digital Youth Engagement Program: Partnership with Microsoft to equip 25 000 Mauritians with digital skills.
Venture Investing and Funding: the National Resilience Fund as well as various grant programs are providing investment and low-interest working capital loans with flexible payment terms.
Development Sandboxes: The country’s Regulatory Sand Box License lets startups ‘test-drive’ their systems and products in a controlled environment.
Due to these initiatives, Mauritius is set to nearly double tech’s contribution to GDP by 2025, according to a PwC report (Balloun, 2024).
Today, 13 out of Africa’s 54 countries have begun putting together national AI strategies, as the continent recognizes the importance of AI for development and growth. These strategies are essential to confront the challenges facing the continent such as limitations in infrastructure, lack of access to quality data and incohesive regulatory frameworks. As well as capitalize on the potential $1.2 trillion AI contribution to Africa’s GDP (Jaldi, 2024).
Proper AI development in Africa could see Africa’s stature rise in the global geopolitical landscape, with Africa becoming less reliant on the Global North and lead to a more balanced power dynamic (Brookings, 2024). On the other hand, failure to become leaders in AI will spell continued lack of influence in global matters.
South Africa Outlook: Risks & Opportunities
The World Bank described AI as being either a blessing or a curse for low- and middle- income countries (Fan et al., 2024). In South Africa, AI will certainly be either a blessing or a curse; economic salvation or continued stagnation.
Large South African corporations who wish to compete globally will be forced to follow global corporate trends – automating as many jobs as possible as well as investing in reskilling the remaining workforce to work in conjunction with AI. Other companies may give up competing globally, compensated in some way by government who wishes to artificially keep job numbers up.
This may be done in business-friendly ways by reviving South African industry and supercharging businesses with AI tools; thus, creating jobs, or it may be done by bloating the government – stretching an already stretched national budget.
The informal economy will be less affected than the formal economy as it is less linked to global markets. With job losses in the formal economy and the reskilling of workers to equip them with modern skills, many will find the technological skills requirements too foreign or cumbersome. There will be a larger split between the formal economy, which aims to compete globally, and an increasingly large informal economy utilizing outdated and inefficient means as it does today.
As economic inequality grows ever larger, social cohesion becomes more difficult and the rule of law may continue to degrade. The gap between the rich and the poor will continue to grow. Increased productivity and wealth will put the top end of the formal economy out of reach of the government as the country becomes increasingly reliant on the private sector for survival. Government operations may at some point abandon economic goals and profit motives completely as on one side the masses of people reliant on the state demand what the state cannot provide and on the other side, slow thinking and anti-market policies will see the state being less competitive.
The welfare state will expand – with a greater percentage of the population depending on grants and jobs that are artificially protected (to the detriment of productivity and efficiency). The current grant program by the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) may be expanded into a countrywide Universal Basic Income (UBI) style program.
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a cash transfer unconditionally given to all citizens at regular intervals (Banerjee et al., 2019). South Africa, as a developing country with a large formal economy, faces unique financial challenges in dealing with an expanding welfare state.
Since 2012, South Africa’s Personal Income Tax (PIT) base has shrunk by roughly 2% (Scott, 2022). Given South Africa’s shrinking tax base, funding an expanded grant program will become increasingly untenable. A World Bank Blog (2023) study found that in developing nations with large informal sectors, funding a UBI grant through income taxes is unfeasible. Such a program would likely be funded by increased consumption taxes – taxes on the purchases of goods and services (Singh, 2023).
Global innovations in technology will make the world less reliant on South African exports and labour. Moreover, poor governance will make it less and less possible for South African companies to export goods competitively. Decreased reliance on South Africa means less investment interest and the economy begins to stagnate.
A large portion of the country will feel disenfranchised and wronged as their standard of living continues to drop. This fuels anti-free market sentiments and prompts a rise in populist anti-establishment and anti-constitutionalist political movements (Gumede, 2024b).
Development Requirements
Conventional Requirements for AI Prosperity
In order for South Africa to thrive in the world of AI, the country must do certain basic things. The four requirements that are common across most national AI strategies are:
Invest in Digital Infrastructure: Behind every amazing AI system is a vast infrastructure making it all possible. This includes datacenters, large-scale energy generation and specialized hardware. For example, expanding internet and smartphone access as well as supporting the technology industry.
Skills Development & Digital Education: Large-scale investment is needed in education involving science, technology and specifically AI. This is essential in giving citizens the tools to build the AI systems that can create jobs, growth and technological progress. For example, introducing school and post-school programs that expose people to the latest developments in AI and promote AI participation.
Local AI Industry: Investment is needed to turn the country into an AI hub that can attract investment, talent and interest in the country. This requires support of entrepreneurs, research laboratories, national educational programs and competitions – anything that promotes engagement in the field of AI. For example, the establishment and support of dedicated AI research institutes.
Strategic Boosters: AI must be used to boost strategic assets. Public-private sector cooperation is needed to unlock the potential of the country’s resource and human wealth. For example, public-private sector AI research units in every major corporation and state-owned enterprise that deals specifically with AI tools for its area of expertise.
South Africa’s Current AI Strategy
There are two existing government AI initiatives in South Africa. In 2011, the Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research (CAIR) was established by the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) and is primarily engaged in supporting AI research at South African Universities. In 2022, the AI Institute of South Africa (AIISA) was established by the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) – which is focused on creating applications of AI for the private and public sector.
In 2024, a new discussion document was released at the DCDT’s AI National Government Summit, listing four core priorities for the government regarding AI:
Smart Approach to AI:
An AI agenda that benefits all citizens.
AI Skills Generation:
Invest in education geared towards developing AI skills.
Policy Research:
Identify ways to mitigate negative impacts of AI.
Economic Growth:
Promote investment in local AI economy.
The document further describes the country’s 2030 goals, most notably to have 5 000 AI experts, 30% of the country’s workforce trained with basic AI skills, 100 to 300 AI startups and R70 billion in direct investment in AI (DCDTa, 2024).
The four core priorities are more or less shared by most countries developing their own national strategies.
Birthed by the dialogue of the National AI Summit was South Africa’s AI Policy Framework. Released by the DCDT, it is a “first step in developing the National AI Policy” and aims to address national challenges and exploit opportunities across the economy (DCDTb, 2024).
The framework suggests a ‘Futures Triangle’ approach to developing the national AI policy – considering the “Push of the Present”: technological advancement, the “Pull of the Future”: the National Development Plan (NDP), as well as the “Weight of the Past”: the historic inequities in South African society.
The AI policy framework lays out the following strategic pillars for the national AI policy.
Talent Development, Digital Infrastructure, Research & Development
Public Sector Implementation, Ethical AI, Data Protection, Security & Transparency
Fairness, Human Control & Promotion of Cultural Values
The National AI Policy Framework outlines the key considerations and values that should be foundational to a future national plan or future AI initiatives.
However, there exists a large gap between the country’s goals and its core priorities – namely specific initiatives designed to achieve the goals. These represent significant unaddressed opportunities for the country.
Unaddressed Opportunities & Specific Plans for South Africa
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being designated a national priority by the world’s largest economies, who are all investing heavily and conventionally in their AI industries. South Africa, with an already stretched budget and existing social-economic and development challenges must embrace unconventional strategies in an attempt to leap-frog up and compete on the world stage. Importantly too, these strategies must be economically feasible and easily implementable.
While the DCDT’s AI National Government Summit discussion document and AI Policy Framework list the country’s core priorities for upcoming national AI policy, there are many opportunities unaddressed by the national dialogue and policy framework that could deliver cost-effective economic growth.
In order to create cost-effective and efficient growth in regard to AI, the country must:
Create shared public datasets and environments for AI development, training and testing.
Problem Addressed: Too many problems for government to address
Make government data publicly available so that the public can create solutions to the country’s problems. In the National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan 2023 prepared by the National Science and Technology Council in the United States, one strategy that is proposed is the creation of publicly available datasets for AI research and development (NAIRDSP, 2023).
Availability and access to large volumes of relevant data is crucial for AI development. A well-designed public data repository would promote cost-effective AI development by allowing anybody to train and test models as well as build advanced systems that solve unique local challenges. All data collected and stored by government departments should be made publicly available with private/sensitive data being anonymized for privacy and security considerations.
Additionally, cloud hardware and computing resources could be made available for the public to train and test the systems on the available data or at the very least point to free, online publicly available tools.
This would allow citizens to build systems to solve problems facing the country from anywhere without cost to the government. For example, by making school performance and resource data (e.g. results, attendance, socio-economic breakdowns, resource availability, location, teacher certifications, etc.) available publicly, AI systems could be built to optimize resource allocation, professional development, policy recommendations and customized learning tools.
This is a cost-effective way to allow the country’s best minds to confront the challenges this country faces and develop solutions tailored to local challenges.
National Public AI Learning Platform
Problem Addressed: Lack of skills and literacy in the field of AI
As described above in ‘Global Adoption of AI: Public Sector’, the average half-life of skills is less than five years and 61% of all jobs will require reskilling by 2027. It is therefore essential to equip citizens with the skills of the future or make available the tools for citizens to equip themselves.
The most cost-effective way of doing this is by creating a zero-rated (free to access) online AI learning portal with resources created by partnerships with companies and universities. Under Singapore’s 2019 National Artificial Intelligence Strategy, the government is on course to provide AI literacy courses to 100 000 adults and students by 2025 (SNDGO, 2019).
This is an efficient way to skill and reskill citizens for the world of AI and drastically improve AI literacy and understanding of the opportunities that exist as a result of advancements in the field of AI.
National AI Venture Investment Fund
Problem Addressed: Missed Economic Opportunities
South Africans have produced innovations that have shaped the world in the fields of medicine, technology, electric vehicles and more. There currently exists the next generation of large SA-born companies. The government – whether under the Public Investment Corporation, Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, or any other branch – must establish a vehicle to invest in South Africa’s burgeoning AI startups.
This will boost the number of AI startups by offering capital, promoting the local AI ecosystem and allowing future spending on future AI-related projects. The countries on the forefront globally in technological development are large-scale investors in startups in their home countries and abroad. Examples include the China Investment Corporation (CIC) supporting Chinese entrepreneurs, Fonds Souverain d'Investissements Stratégiques (FSIS) in France, which is partnered with tech incubator ‘Station F’ to fund French startups, and the Saudi Public Investment Fund involved in venture investing across the world (WIPO, 2020).
The stakes are higher than ever before for South Africa. The country may have the world’s greatest potential but the potential for total disaster exists if the country does not move swiftly, proactively and strategically into the new world. Given South Africa’s unique challenges, the country needs unconventional strategies that can have maximum impact whilst remaining economically feasible.
Conclusion
Fears of dystopia and hopes of utopia are equally unrealistic in regard to AI. We already have the tools of our destruction and salvation, AI is yet another. The future of AI is a human question more than it is a technological question – a question of how we deal with increasingly advanced technologies.
At its core the AI revolution represents a period of exponentially increasing technological advancement. Each stage of human development has brought significant change but overall, the human standard of living has increased, human civilization has expanded, and new worlds and industries have been created.
The automobile revolution created millions of jobs and displaced countless, too. The Ford Model T must certainly have been devastating to the last horse trader in Detroit, but today a world without automobiles is impossible to imagine.
Global trends indicate that there will be a net loss to jobs in the short term as a result of AI but that in the longer term, new industries will create more jobs than are lost and grow the world economy.
Companies, countries, organizations and individuals who are proactive and adaptive in this changing world will see their fortunes thrive and others who are not, will see their fortunes wither. Countries around the world are making great gains in efficiency, transparency and service delivery by utilizing AI. Companies too, are increasing the efficiency of their operations by experimenting with automated AI systems.
For developing nations like South Africa, the opportunity exists for radical growth. If proper investment is made in educating and reskilling people for the world of AI, the country’s enormous potential could be unleashed. If the people of South Africa actively participate in the task of finding the right path and the government endeavors to create the conditions for people to thrive, there is no limit to the success we may see.
If, on the other hand, we neglect our responsibility to build, learn and ensure that the country thrives, South Africa could easily be left behind. The country must invest in digital infrastructure, support AI hubs and innovation, invest in education and reskilling for the future and use AI to boost its strategic opportunities.
In addition to the conventional strategies, there is also a need for unconventional local-focused strategies. These include a national online AI education platform, a national public data repository to allow all to create AI systems targeting South African issues and challenges, and lastly, a national AI venture fund is needed to support South African entrepreneurs and promote AI-based economic growth.
The right choices could see the country become a world superpower with an economy supercharged by AI and related advanced technologies. The wrong choices will bring about increased strife in the form of unemployment, crime, economic stagnation, inequality, etc.
In understanding what the future of humanity’s relationship with technology is, one should consider this: a century ago the idea of being able to instantaneously see and speak to somebody across the world was beyond comprehension. Today, if one forgets one’s phone at home, it feels as if one is missing a limb. If the internet is down, one might as well be in Antarctica. Not only is technology advancing at an increasing rate, but we are also becoming technology. We are merging with machines – in so doing, creating a new type of human. With advancements in the way we interact with technology it will soon become difficult to determine where machines begin and humans end. Humanity is being supercharged by machines.
Imagine now if one does not participate in this societal shift. The gap between those who embrace AI and those who do not will grow exponentially until the differences in capabilities within our species are greater than the difference between us and our closest relatives: Chimpanzees and Bonobos.
The AI revolution represents a shift too significant to ignore or sleep-walk into. Failure to adapt and develop will have severe consequences regarding development, social-economic inequality, social cohesion, human rights and democratic ideals. Fortunately, the future is in our hands. It will neither be utopia nor dystopia; it will be what we make it.
References
African Union. 2024. Draft Continental Artificial Intelligence Strategy. [Online] Available at: https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/44004-doc-EN-_Continental_AI_Strategy_July_2024.pdf
Attal, G. 2024. Use of AI to Serve French Citizens. Office of Prime Minister, France. [Online] Available at: https://www.uspa24.com/bericht-24391/pm-g-attal-s-speech-amid-states-reform-over-de-bureaucratizing.html
Balloun, C. 2024. Inside Mauritius’s Thriving Tech Hub: Startups and Success Stories. NuCamp. [Online] Available at: https://www.nucamp.co/blog/coding-bootcamp-mauritius-mus-inside-mauritiuss-thriving-tech-hub-startups-and-success-stories
Banerjee, A. et al. 2019. Universal Basic Income in the Developing World. National Bureau of Economic Research. [Online] Available at: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w25598/w25598.pdf
Bolagsverket. 2023. AI model sorts the agency's inbox. [Online] Available at: https://www.bolagsverket.se/omoss/press/pressmeddelanden/pressmeddelanden2023/aimodellsorterarmyndighetensinkorg.4936.html
Boy, C. et al. 2023. Artificial Intelligence: Revolutionary Potential and Huge Uncertainties. [Online] Available at: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/9040dbbb-8594-4083-a399-24592313f907/content
Brookings. 2024. How AI is impacting policy processes and outcomes in Africa. Brookings Institute. [Online] Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-ai-is-impacting-policy-processes-and-outcomes-in-africa/
Chui, M. et al. 2024. The state of AI in early 2024: Gen AI adoption spikes and starts to generate value. [Online] Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-state-of-ai
Cirou, E. 2024. Say hello to Albert! The new AI in French public services. [Online] Available at: https://blog.economie-numerique.net/2024/05/06/say-hello-to-albert-the-new-ai-in-french-public-service/
Cooban, A. 2024. AI will shrink workforces within five years, say company execs. [Online] Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/05/business/ai-job-losses/index.html
DCDTa. 2024. AI National Government Summit Discussion Document. Department of Communications and Digital Technologies. [Online] Available at: https://www.dcdt.gov.za/images/phocadownload/AI_Government_Summit/National_AI_Government_Summit_Discussion_Document.pdf
DCDTb. 2024. South Africa National Artificial Intelligence Policy Framework. Department of Communications and Digital Technologies. [Online] Available at: https://techcentral.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/South-Africa-National-AI-Policy-Framework.pdf
Doumi, L. et al. 2023. Reskilling in the age of AI. [Online] Available at: https://hbr.org/2023/09/reskilling-in-the-age-of-ai
European Parliament. 2023. Globalisation's impact on employment and the EU. [Online] Available at: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/pdfs/news/expert/2019/8/story/20190712STO56968/20190712STO56968_en.pdf
European Parliament. 2024. The AuroraAI Programme. [Online] Available at: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/240174/AIDA%20workshop_28052021_Alanko.pdf
Fan, Q. & Qiang, C. 2024. Tipping the scales: AI's dual impact on developing nations. World Bank Blogs. [Online] Available at: https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/digital-development/tipping-the-scales--ai-s-dual-impact-on-developing-nations
Georgieva, K. 2024. AI Will Transform the Global Economy. Let’s Make Sure It Benefits Humanity. [Online] Available at: https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2024/01/14/ai-will-transform-the-global-economy-lets-make-sure-it-benefits-humanity#:~:text=The%20IMF%20analysis%20captures%20both,to%20impact%20high%2Dskilled%20jobs.
Geurts, P. 2024. Gemeente Nijmegen zet AI in voor meer zicht op drukte in binnenstad. [Online] Available at: https://ai-magazine.vngrealisatie.nl/nijmegen/
Goel, S. & Kovács-Ondrejkovic, O. 2023. Your Strategy Is Only as Good as Your Skills. [Online] Available at: https://www.bcg.com/publications/2023/your-strategy-is-only-as-good-as-your-skills
Goldstein, S. & Kirk-Giannini, C. 2023. AI is closer than ever to passing the Turing test for ‘intelligence’. What happens when it does? [Online] Available at: https://theconversation.com/ai-is-closer-than-ever-to-passing-the-turing-test-for-intelligence-what-happens-when-it-does-214721
Gov.Br. 2024. Alice - Bidding, Contracts and Notices Analyzer. [Online] Available at: https://www.gov.br/cgu/pt-br/assuntos/auditoria-e-fiscalizacao/alice
Gumede, W. 2023. BRICS: Rising de-dollarisation of the world. [Online] Available at: https://www.inclusivesociety.org.za/post/brics-rising-de-dollarisation-of-the-world
Gumede, W. 2024. Unless Africans elect better leaders, developing continent remains a dream. [Online] Available at: https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2024-04-18-william-gumede-unless-africans-elect-better-leaders-developing-continent-remains-a-dream/
Harvard Business Review. 2023. Reskilling in the Age of AI. [Online] Available at: https://hbr.org/2023/09/reskilling-in-the-age-of-ai
Heaven, W. 2024. Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why. [Online] Available at: https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/03/04/1089403/large-language-models-amazing-but-nobody-knows-why/
IBM. 2024. What are large language models (LLMs)? [Online] Available at: https://www.ibm.com/topics/large-language-models
Jaldi, A. 2024. Artificial Intelligence Revolution in Africa: Economic Opportunities and Legal Challenges. [Online] Available at: https://www.policycenter.ma/sites/default/files/2023-07/PP_13-23%20(Jaldi%20).pdf
JP Morgan. 2024. How AI can boost productivity and jump start growth. [Online] Available at: https://privatebank.jpmorgan.com/nam/en/insights/markets-and-investing/ideas-and-insights/how-ai-can-boost-productivity-and-jump-start-growth
JP Morgan Chase. 2024. Artificial Intelligence Research. [Online] Available at: https://www.jpmorgan.com/technology/artificial-intelligence
Klarna. 2024. Klarna AI assistant handles two-thirds of customer service chats in its first month. [Online] Available at: https://www.klarna.com/international/press/klarna-ai-assistant-handles-two-thirds-of-customer-service-chats-in-its-first-month/
MAIS. 2024. Mauritius Artificial Intelligence Strategy. Government of Mauritius. [Online] Available at: https://ncb.govmu.org/ncb/strategicplans/MauritiusAIStrategy2018.pdf
Moll, B., Lukasz, R., & Pascual, R. 2022. Uneven Growth: Automation’s Impact on Income and Wealth Inequality. [Online] Available at: https://benjaminmoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/UG.pdf
NAIRDSP. 2023. National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan. National Science and Technology Council. [Online] Available at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/National-Artificial-Intelligence-Research-and-Development-Strategic-Plan-2023-Update.pdf
OECD. 2013. Responsiveness of public services: Timeliness. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Publishing. [Online] Available at: https://doi.org/10.1787/gov_glance-2013-54-en
OECD. 2023. 2023 Digital Government Index. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Publishing. [Online] Available at: https://doi.org/10.1787/1a89ed5e-en
Oliveira, T. et al. 2022. Alice: Desafios, resultados e perspectivas da ferramenta de auditoria contínua de compras públicas governamentais com uso de inteligência artificial. [Online] Available at: https://doi.org/10.36428/revistadacgu.v14i26.530
OpenAI. 2024a. GPT-4 Technical Report. [Online] Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.08774
OpenAI. 2024b. Moderna and OpenAI partner to accelerate the development of life-saving treatments. [Online] Available at: https://openai.com/index/moderna/
Ormond, E. 2023. Emergence of Artificial Intelligence in South Africa. [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4W5d6iYuLc
Paris-Saclay. 2023. Paris-Saclay dévoile TWIN 2030 un jumeau numérique territorial à large échelle pour une politique publique de nouvelle generation. [Online] Available at: https://www.paris-saclay.com/fileadmin/documents/1._L_agglo/Espace_Presse/Paris-Saclay_Twin_2030.pdf
Pomeroy, R. 2023. How AI played an instrumental role in making mRNA vaccines. [Online] Available at: https://bigthink.com/health/ai-mrna-vaccines-moderna/
RFI. 2024. French government will use AI to modernise public services. [Online] Available at: https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20240423-french-government-will-use-ai-to-modernise-public-services
Rio Tinto. 2016. Rio Tinto outlines new $5 billion productivity push under long-term strategy focused on cash generation. [Online] Available at: https://www.riotinto.com/en/news/releases/2016/5bn-productivity-push-outlined
Scott, M. 2022. SA Budget Review 2022: The Shrinking PIT tax base. [Online] Available at: https://www.ey.com/en_za/insights/tax/the-shrinking-pit-tax-base-what-s-next
Siemens. 2023. AI for Everyone. [Online] Available at: https://webinars.sw.siemens.com/en-US/mindsphere-analytic-tools-how-does-ai-work-with-iot/
Singh, K. 2023. UBI Financing and Its Long-Term Impacts in Economies with a Large Informal Sector. [Online] Available at: https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/impactevaluations/ubi-financing-and-its-long-term-impacts-economies-large-informal-sector-guest
SNDGO. 2019. Singapore National Artificial Intelligence Strategy. Smart Nation and Digital Government Office. [Online] Available at: https://www.smartnation.gov.sg/docs/default-source/default-document-library/national-aistrategy.pdf?sfvrsn=2c3bd8e9_4
Social Income. 2024. World Poverty Statistics 2024. [Online] Available at: https://socialincome.org/en/int/world-poverty-statistics-2024
Ubaldi, B. & Zapata, R. 2024. Government with Artificial Intelligence: Are Government Ready? Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Publishing. [Online] Available at: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/26324bc2-en.pdf?expires=1722873693&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=6DAA28EDC7DB05B28D3531F98746C1AB
Verma, P. & De Vynck, G. 2023. ChatGPT took their jobs. Now they walk dogs and fix air conditioners. [Online] Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/02/ai-taking-jobs/
WEF. 2020. Future of Jobs Report 2020. World Economic Forum. [Online] Available at: https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2020/
WEF. 2023. Future of Jobs Report 2023. World Economic Forum. [Online] Available at: https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs_2023.pdf
Wheeler, T. 2023. The three challenges of AI regulation. [Online] Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-three-challenges-of-ai-regulation/
WIPO. 2020. Sovereign Wealth Funds and Innovation Investing in an Era of Mounting Uncertainty. World Intellectual Property Organization. [Online] Available at: https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_gii_2020-chapter5.pdf
Yang, C. 2022. How Artificial Intelligence Technology Affects Productivity and Employment: Firm-Level Evidence from Taiwan. [Online] Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j .respol.2022.104536
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This report has been published by the Inclusive Society Institute
The Inclusive Society Institute (ISI) is an autonomous and independent institution that functions independently from any other entity. It is founded for the purpose of supporting and further deepening multi-party democracy. The ISI’s work is motivated by its desire to achieve non-racialism, non-sexism, social justice and cohesion, economic development and equality in South Africa, through a value system that embodies the social and national democratic principles associated with a developmental state. It recognises that a well-functioning democracy requires well-functioning political formations that are suitably equipped and capacitated. It further acknowledges that South Africa is inextricably linked to the ever transforming and interdependent global world, which necessitates international and multilateral cooperation. As such, the ISI also seeks to achieve its ideals at a global level through cooperation with like-minded parties and organs of civil society who share its basic values. In South Africa, ISI’s ideological positioning is aligned with that of the current ruling party and others in broader society with similar ideals.
Email: info@inclusivesociety.org.za
Phone: +27 (0) 21 201 1589