Profound changes wrought by AI require comprehensive strategy
When the government promotes innovation and technology development, are we ready to embrace the future technology era? With the breakthrough development of artificial intelligence in recent years, the world is undergoing revolutionary changes. We all remember that two years ago AlphaGo, an AI go program, beat Lee Se-dol, a nine-dan professional, in a five-game match. One year later, AlphaGo defeated Ke Jie, the world No 1 ranked player at the time. The victory of Alpha Go revealed the significance of machine learning and raised public concern over the impact of AI.
A research team from the University of Oxford looked into this issue. Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne used novel machine learning methods to quantify the impact of new technology on the employment market. They drew an astonishing conclusion that 47 percent of United States jobs carried a 70 percent risk of being automated soon. What will be the case in Hong Kong? To find out the answer, my colleagues from the One Country Two Systems Research Institute teamed up with the University of Oxford to evaluate the vulnerability of Hong Kong jobs to automation. They released their research report early this week.
Building on Frey and Osborne’s methodology, Paul Duckworth from the University of Oxford conducted the analysis and found 28 percent of the 3.7 million jobs in Hong Kong are at high risk of automation, while 18 percent are at low risk. This means about a million working people in Hong Kong would face a risk as high as 70 percent of being rendered redundant by AI technology.
It is noteworthy that the AI revolution will not only take over routine jobs such as secretaries, cashiers or couriers but also affect professional positions such as accountants, auditors or paralegals. The research found that jobs which require higher creativity and social intelligence skills would have a lower chance of being automated. Educational attainment and income also show a strong negative relation with automation probability, highlighting the importance of education.
Worse still, Hong Kong is vulnerable to technological impact in three ways. Firstly, Hong Kong is a service economy which concentrates on four pillar industries — financial services, trading and logistics, tourism and professional services. The research showed these sectors face relatively high automation risk; they account for 56 percent of GDP and 47 percent of the employed population. Industries with comparatively low automation risk — including healthcare, education, information technology and cultural and creative sectors — together contribute just 8 percent of the city’s GDP and account for 11 percent of the employed population. Without proper measures in place, our society’s exposure to the AI revolution is significant.
Secondly, Hong Kong lags other major developed economies in continuing education, with a declining proportion of the working population investing in life-long education since 2006. This lowers employees’ risk tolerance toward the impact of AI. Thirdly, Hong Kong secondary schools perform poorly in science and technology compared with other major developed economies, according to an international proficiency test TIMSS. Hong Kong can hardly grow a leading AI industry without a sustainable local talents supply.
Nevertheless, the impact of AI is not limited to Hong Kong. There is plenty of discussion on policy responses to an AI-dominated employment market all over the world. Governments, including those in Japan, the United States, United Kingdom and the Chinese mainland have announced national strategic plans to develop their AI industry. As yet Hong Kong has no comprehensive AI-focused strategy.
The city should embrace the AI trend and actively transform itself and adapt to the AI era. For instance, the government should have a comprehensive talent development strategy with an emphasis on attracting and cultivating AI-equipped talents as soon as possible. Moreover, the Legislative Council should upgrade the outdated legal framework to create an AI-friendly regulatory environment. To better equip our teenagers, STEM education should be enhanced from primary education to continuing education and life-long education. Last but not least, the welfare regime in the AI era should be reviewed to safeguard the livelihood of those affected workers.
The history of past industrial revolutions taught us that the impact of new technology on the employment market during the transition can bring social problems if not managed properly. This raises great public concern that AI may take over human jobs. Aldous Huxley’s famous quote told us: “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history” but we still expect the government would develop a comprehensive innovation and technology development strategy with a focus on the AI era.