CORONAVIRUS HAS PLUNGED US FURTHER INTO 4IR
IN SOUTH Korea, a grey “smart” speaker more resembling a candle than any technology at first glance, is paying close attention to the search habits of senior citizens.
The speaker has a built-in artificial intelligence (AI) system called Aria. A lamp at the top turns blue as it processes voice commands. Yet, it goes further than the likes of Amazon’s Alexa. From an office in Eastern Seoul, SK Telecom, the speaker looks for signs of loneliness and insecurity before recommending a visit by public health officials.
The concern is that accompanying the coronavirus is the pandemic of loneliness. With social distancing still enforced even as lockdowns ease, and with the elderly particularly at risk of dying from Covid-19, it is understandable that steps have been taken to ease down the restrictions. There is even a view to remain relevant long after the pandemic eases. The devices can quiz their users to monitor the memory and cognitive functions, which would be potentially useful for advising treatments.
This is the brave new world we are entering. In many instances, it has proved to be successful. Track and trace of new infections have been exceedingly efficient through AI. Governments have been able to use data to monitor people who may have the coronavirus. Robots akin to the Roomba have sprayed disinfectant in public areas, and algorithms have been used to differentiate between pneumonia, tuberculosis and the coronavirus in chest X-rays. Yet, there’s quite a dark underbelly.
Phindile Kunene, an educator at the Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education, rightly pointed out that, there are “big debates about the relationship between technology and human freedom”.
The corona world has served as somewhat of a yardstick for our preparedness for the 4IR. It has revealed where we are able to adapt, but it has also revealed the pitfalls of the 4IR. For one, privacy concerns are extremely valid.
As Phindile Kunene put it: “We should wonder if drone technology will not be repurposed to monitor and quash movements of shack dwellers, backyarders and occupiers like Abahlali baseMjondolo and Reclaim the City.” She goes on to say: “Far from being ‘pessimistic’ about technology, many activists are exploring visions of change premised on how digital technologies can serve us without robbing us of our freedoms.”
The challenge, of course, is to harness it positively. In Life 3.0, Max Tegmark writes: “Technology is giving life the potential to flourish like never before – or to self-destruct.” Then, of course, is the worry of the jobs it will displace.
In a global economy and the local economy, I might add that it has been battered by the impact of the coronavirus, and consequently, unemployment is rising exponentially. Businesses are looking to technology as a solution, and in a natural progression of cost-cutting and automation, many people are being replaced.
We have been plunged further and faster into the 4IR than we would have been without the coronavirus pandemic. After all, social distancing, or physical distancing, has necessitated that we permeate our lives with technologies.
Now that we are here, now that many have acknowledged that we have taken the leap into another industrial revolution and now that we are testing what works for us and what does not, we must interrogate how to best respond in a way that does not exacerbate the myriad challenges but instead subverts them.
As Andrew Ng, the co-founder of Google Brain, said: “Much has been written about AI’s potential to reflect the best and the worst of humanity. For example, we have seen AI providing conversation and comfort to the lonely; we have also seen AI engaging in racial discrimination. Yet the biggest harm that AI is likely to do to individuals in the short term is job displacement, as the amount of work we can automate with AI is vastly larger than before. As leaders, it is incumbent on all of us to make sure we are building a world in which every individual has an opportunity to thrive.”