... Machine-learning institute to help address concerns over automation of jobs
Back in 2015 when I started to write basic artificial neural networks from scratch, I had then, through observation of the words of many experts in the field, begun to appreciate what machine learning could do for the state, and also how we could begin to utilise machine-learning models, without PhD level work, or expensive computers.
UWI Mona (via its artificial intelligence lecturer), through my advice, had already begun to slowly introduce neural networks as options in the
Artificial intelligence coursework in 2016, which is excellent. Artificial intelligence is the hottest sector today globally, with projected earnings of US$1.2 trillion. This heat spot is only being accelerated when countries’ universities adopt strong machine-learning courses, that is, the better the machinelearning course, the better graduating students are able to relate to this hot field.
This has resulted in economic stimulation globally, as AI products/start-ups emerge across a variety of problem spaces. Like UWI, Mona, it would be optimal if other universities in the Caribbean begin to introduce or encourage the use of machine-learning models as an aim to maintain relevance, and the capability to solve real-world problems in efficient machine-learning oriented ways.
Recent articles have pointed out artificial intelligencerelated automation and its potential threat to jobs while others have pointed out when artificial intelligence-based machines will really roughly begin to consume Jamaican jobs.
Those articles above are great, but they don’t, in sufficient detail, begin to describe practical ways of approaching this impending/ already-present automation.
The Machine Learning Jamaica Institute (MLJI) is an early platform that already describes practical curriculums/ways to alleviate potential unemploy-ment caused by the already-present automation of jobs, and the inevitable future automation of more and more jobs.
With the advice/assistance of UWI, Mona, lecturers, I am working to construct the MLJI, which is concerned with equipping more Jamaicans with modern machinelearning skills. The institute will serve to enable more Jamaicans to gain the ability to earn money in light of job automation, such as technologies that already replace humans in call centre jobs.