…nations that have begun to prepare for and explore AI will reap the benefits of an economic boom. The report also demonstrates how anyone who hasn’t prepared, especially in developing nations, will be left behind… In the developing world, in the developing countries or countries with transition economies, there is much less discussion of AI, both from the benefit or the risk side.
The growing divide between nations that are prepared for widespread automation and those that aren’t, between companies that can cut costs by replacing workers and the newly unemployed people themselves, puts us on a collision course for conflict and backlash against further developing and deploying AI technology
Source: Robitzski, D. (2018). If Artificial Intelligence Only Benefits a Select Few, Everyone Loses.
A short post that’s drawn mainly from the 64 page McKinsey report (Notes From the Frontier: Modeling the Impact of AI on the World Economy). This is something that I’ve tried to highlight when I’ve talked about this technology to skeptical colleagues; in many cases, AI in the workplace will arrive as a software update and will, therefore, be available in developing, as well as developed countries. This isn’t like buying a new MRI machine where the cost is in the hardware and ongoing support. The existing MRI machine will get an update over the internet and from now on it’ll include analysis of the image and automated reporting. And now the cost of running your radiology department at full staff capacity is starting to look more expensive than it needs to be. This says nothing of the other important tasks that radiologists perform; the fact is that a big component of their daily work includes classifying images, and for human beings, that ship has sailed. While in more developed economies it may be easier to relocate expertise within the same institution, I don’t think we’re going to have that luxury the developing world. If we’re not thinking about these problems today, we’re going to be awfully unprepared when that software update arrives.