AI apocalypse cancelled
Despite society’s fears of a robot apocalypse, artificial intelligence (AI) will account for just 10 per cent of normal job creation and destruction in New Zealand over the next 40 years, according to a landmark report released today.
Artificial Intelligence — Shaping a Future New Zealand, analyses AI’s potential impact on New Zealand’s society and economy.
Of the 10 million jobs set to be displaced by normal market changes over the next 40 years, 1 million of those will be lost to AI, the report says.
Widespread adoption of the technology is estimated to take 20-40 years. Natural changes in the labour market during that time will be significantly larger than any expected impact from AI.
Rather than coming for our jobs, the technology is more likely to free up employees from mundane tasks and allow them to tackle more complex and creative work, the report suggests.
‘‘Some commentators argue that due to the speed and scale of labour market change expected, AI is different to previous technology cycles,’’ the report says. ‘‘Our research does not support this view.’’
It notes New Zealand’s understanding of AI’s significance is low compared to other issues with similarly wideranging effects on society.
While AI has the potential to increase New Zealand GDP by $54 billion by 2025, the country ‘‘needs to actively engage with AI now in order to secure our future prosperity’’.
Given the government intends to make ICT (information and communications technology) the second largest contributor to GDP by 2025, the report found a gap in national-level strategies and investment in AI capability; while Canada, China, France, Singapore, South Korea, United Arab Emirates and Britain have all developed multimillion dollar national AI investment strategies, New Zealand doesn’t have one.
‘‘We really do see the advent of AI as significant as electricity,’’ said Ben Reid, executive director of the AI Forum, the independent, membershipfunded body which produced the report. ‘‘We see this as a pivotal time.’’
While the term ‘‘artificial intelligence’’ has existed since the 1950s, we’re now at a tipping point, he explained.
‘‘The main enablers are the technologies that have matured to a point where they can support the theories we developed decades ago.
‘‘A lot of the research done previously is able to be deployed at scale thanks to the advent of big data storage and analysis systems.’’
While there are ‘‘pockets of excellence’’ in the sector, there isn’t a coordinated, strategic approach at a national level to maximise benefits for New Zealand as a whole, he said.
The types of tasks where humans are expected to have enduring cognitive advantages over computers are described in the report as ‘‘nonroutine’’, and include creativity, initiative, leadership or assisting others. More ‘‘routine’’ tasks are said to be prone to automation.
AI could also help ease workforce shortages in areas such as health and education, Reid said.
Communications Minister Clare Curran, who launched the report in Wellington yesterday, described it as a ‘‘wake up call’’ and said an ‘‘action plan’’ was urgently needed to address a lack of skills and an ethical framework for AI technologies.
As a first step, she said she would be formalising the government’s relationship with Otago University’s NZ Law Foundation Centre for Law and Policy in Emerging Technologies — the only New Zealand-based research centre that examines legal, ethical and policy issues around new technologies.
PROMISE AND PERIL OF AI PG 17