In the recent symposium held at Northeastern University at Chatham House in London, the speakers discussed on how the society should not fear the rise of smart machines, and should instead focus on how we can flourish in an age of AI technology. Sources say that around half of all the jobs in advanced economies is being expected to disappear in the next 20 years as AI can displace human labour. As a measure, the respondents in the UK and Canada suggest that governments should play a greater role in providing education and retraining.
Joseph E. Aoun, president of Northeastern University and author of Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, says, “We have to rethink completely what we are providing in terms of education.” He says that our system of education should be based on the idea of providing equality of opportunities to reskill and upskill the students.
Talking about the skills required to sustain in this age of technology, Kriti Sharma, the founder of AI for Good and a board member at the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, says, “One of the hottest jobs right now in the field of AI is not necessarily a data scientist, it’s an anthropologist or conversation designers, people who can understand the interface of humans and machines. Those are the skills that we are really struggling to hire.” This diversity is said to be essential for building public trust in smart machines and assuaging ethical concerns that are raised by the potential of Artificial Intelligence.
On talking about AI being beneficial for wellbeing and social cohesion, Oliver Buckley, executive director at the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, says, “We have an opportunity to do better in the development of AI—we can shape the future and not just respond to it, AI should serve society and not the other way around.”
Aoun concludes by saying, “We are all going to need lifelong learning. From this perspective, higher education is facing its golden age—but it doesn’t realize it yet.”
Umayal
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