Anxiety Over Artificial Intelligence In The Work Place

The world is fast transforming and technology is helping to mold and shape the circumstances of the modern time.  And with the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) a whole new dimension has been added to the international job market. The issue of Artificial Intelligence has provided a veritable ground for communicators, journalists, digital creators, designers and artists to discuss its economic advantages and challenges. Anxiety is mounting regarding its social impact.

During a recent symposium in Havana, Cuba on Artificial Intelligence, President Miguel Diaz-Canel in his admonition made it clear that “it has become extremely important for developing countries to mobilize resources to invest in the digital media especially Artificial Intelligence in order to counter the vicious use of the technology by imperialists to control the narrative in the media space as well as forestall the negative economic impacts of the AI on developing nations.”

As a newspaper, we acknowledge the fact that AI has already made significant progress into the lives of people ranging from voice assistants that respond to commands and recommendation algorithms that suggest what people should watch, read, or buy.  We appreciate the fact that AI is driving innovation in healthcare, finance, transportation, and countless other fields.

The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Dr. Aminu Maida recently warned about the inordinate use of this technology to manipulate and violate ethical standards. According to him, while AI is a great innovation, the developing countries must also grapple with ethical issues to ensure that its systems are fair and unbiased.

It is, therefore, imperative to clamour for a responsible use of AI, which means using it in an ethical way throughout its development, deployment and usage such that it can be trusted especially to protect existing jobs in the country among other issues.

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Industrialized economies like China and the West appear to have perfected the use of AI to drive productivity and boost their economies. There are companies, including automobile firms, in China, which now use AI to manufacture cars and other brands of vehicles. This deployment has reduced the number of people who work in those firms with good efficiency and high productivity levels.

While this might be good for developed economies, deploying AI in manufacturing and industrial activities in Nigeria will mean reducing the number of people in firms and even in government establishments that might be automated.  There lies the danger in the deployment of AI in this period of high unemployment especially among the youth.

Nigeria has a huge youth population which has unrivalled vibrancy in the digital media in Africa.  According to Global Digital Insights, Nigeria is home to 36.7 million social media users as of January 2024, which represents about 16.2 per cent of the total population estimated at about 220 million.

In our opinion, building the capacity in the digital economy can boost the chances of job creation instead of wholesale deployment of AI, which will threaten not just the available jobs but also the attendant social impacts.

It is assumed that Nigeria is home to the poorest people on earth. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) 133.3 million Nigerians are suffering from multi-dimensional poverty which is about 63 per cent of the country’s population. At the moment nearly 40 per cent of Nigerians are said to be unemployed amid another almost 40 per cent poverty rate in the country. Today, inflation has hit 33 per cent in Nigeria thereby taking the prices of food and other essential items and services beyond the reach of many.

According to KPMG, an accounting and management firm, unemployment is expected to continue to be a major challenge in Nigeria due to the limited investment by the private sector, low industrialization and slower than required economic growth and consequently the inability of the economy to absorb the 4-5 million new entrants into the Nigerian job market every year.

We believe that AI has the potential to create new job opportunities, but it may have a negative impact on traditional jobs. McKinsey global institute says AI has the profound impact to deliver additional global economic activity of around $13 trillion in the foreseeable future and by 2030, or about 16 per cent higher cumulative Gross Domestic Product (GDP) compared to what obtains presently.

While AI will be creating some jobs, it is important to ascertain the ratio and develop plans to mitigate a situation where more people will be out of jobs than those employed as a result of its deployment in the work place.

The current administration of President Bola Tinubu is grappling with a challenging environment caused, essentially, by fragile and slow economic growth and volatile foreign exchange market. These ugly developments are already increasing the number of job loss and the frustration in the land.

We are, therefore, persuaded to advocate the need for AI developers to be transparent about the data, algorithms, and models used irrespective of people’s background in order to prevent job losses.