Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence (AI) has the po­ten­tial to save lives, im­prove food se­cu­ri­ty and make en­er­gy pro­duc­tion more ef­fi­cient and sus­tain­able, all the while re­duc­ing the costs of do­ing busi­ness in T&T.

How­ev­er, Cavelle Joseph-St Omer, pres­i­dent of the Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (HRMATT) is ad­vis­ing that for peo­ple to max­imise the ad­van­tage of AI, that would re­quire a strong dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture, in­clu­sive of wide­spread in­ter­net ac­cess and re­li­able dig­i­tal ser­vices.

These will be among the is­sues which will be brought to the fore as HRMATT hosts the lat­est edi­tion in it se­ries of C-Suite Con­ver­sa­tions next Wednes­day un­der the theme: Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence vs Hu­man In­tel­li­gence (AI) vs HI) at the Hy­att Re­gency.

Shar­ing in­sights on the up­com­ing ex­ec­u­tive con­ver­sa­tions in an in­ter­view with the Busi­ness Guardian, Joseph-St Omer said there are some risks in the ear­ly stages of in­tro­duc­tion where AI can po­ten­tial­ly wors­en in­equal­i­ty by erod­ing jobs through au­toma­tion es­pe­cial­ly where em­ploy­ers are not up­skilling their work­force.

“In­ter­sec­tion­al­i­ty ex­ists be­tween ed­u­ca­tion and the labour mar­ket which presents a risk, and re­quires that we si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly ad­dress AI’s im­pact on both stu­dents and the work­force,” she ad­vised adding,”We need to con­tin­ue to in­vest in STEM ed­u­ca­tion in schools while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly prepar­ing our work­force. By re­train­ing em­ploy­ees who lost or may lose their jobs due to AI and cul­ti­vat­ing high-in-de­mand skills, we can re­main re­silient as a coun­try in the face of the mas­sive work­force shifts that lie ahead.”

From a pub­lic pol­i­cy per­spec­tive, Joseph-St Omer said the ap­pro­pri­ate eco­nom­ic and so­cial poli­cies are need­ed to dri­ve the dig­i­tal ecosys­tem.

Whether such poli­cies in­clude dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy, she said en­sur­ing the ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty of dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture, or sup­port­ing new dig­i­tal busi­ness mod­els, poli­cies can sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­prove the pop­u­la­tion’s readi­ness to en­gage with AI tech­nolo­gies and en­sure that reg­u­la­tion is con­ducive to in­no­va­tion while pro­tect­ing the in­ter­ests of all stake­hold­ers.

“We can en­sure that through ef­fec­tive gov­er­nance, we are ready to em­brace AI and max­imise HI there­by ben­e­fit­ting from the unique op­por­tu­ni­ties that lie ahead. We are in the fourth in­dus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion. There is no go­ing back,” Joseph-St Omer added.

At the C-Suite con­ver­sa­tion event, she not­ed themes re­lat­ing to AI and HI will be dis­cussed across in­dus­tries and sec­tors as well as the con­fer­ence will ex­plore some of the eth­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions that have to be made in seam­less­ly in­te­grat­ing AI with hu­man ef­forts.

While, AI ex­cels in com­pu­ta­tion­al pow­er, speed, and ac­cu­ra­cy, Joseph-St Omer fur­ther not­ed that HI is dri­ven by emo­tions, in­tu­ition, and com­plex so­cial in­ter­ac­tions. AI re­lies on pre­de­fined al­go­rithms, while HI re­lies on both in­nate abil­i­ties and con­tin­u­ous learn­ing from ex­pe­ri­ences.

She not­ed these are per­haps the main dif­fer­ences of both forms on in­tel­li­gence.

But ex­act­ly where does the bat­tle lie?

Can ma­chines re­place hu­mans?

CEO of iGovTT Dr In­shan Meahjohn, who will be part of HRMATT C-Suite pan­el at the event ex­plained,”As we stand at the cross­roads of hu­man and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, it’s cru­cial to re­mem­ber that AI’s great­est strength lies not in re­plac­ing hu­man in­ge­nu­ity, but in am­pli­fy­ing it. The fu­ture be­longs to those who can har­ness the pow­er of AI while em­brac­ing the ir­re­place­able qual­i­ties of hu­man cre­ativ­i­ty, em­pa­thy, and eth­i­cal rea­son­ing.”

Stat­ing that the re­cent achieve­ments of AI to im­i­tate hu­man in­tel­li­gence more close­ly than ever be­fore has brought with it a lot of fears Joseph-St Omer said when those fears set in, it is im­por­tant to re­mem­ber the abil­i­ty of hu­mans to ap­ply the ac­quired knowl­edge with a sense of log­ic, rea­son­ing, un­der­stand­ing, learn­ing and ex­pe­ri­ence is the dif­fer­ence be­tween man and ma­chines.

“With knowl­edge comes pow­er, and with pow­er comes great re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Al­though ma­chines may be able to mim­ic hu­man be­hav­iour to a cer­tain ex­tent, their knowl­edge may fall apart when mak­ing ra­tio­nal de­ci­sions like us. AI-pow­ered ma­chines make de­ci­sions based on events and their as­so­ci­a­tion with them. How­ev­er, they lack ‘com­mon sense’. “And yes, some hu­mans lack com­mon sense just the same, how­ev­er, AI sys­tems are clue­less in the un­der­stand­ing of ‘cause’ and ‘ef­fect’. Mean­while, re­al-world sce­nar­ios that we face on a dai­ly ba­sis in all spheres of life, need a holis­tic hu­man ap­proach,” Joseph-St Omer ex­plained.

She added that with­in re­cent times there have been some epic AI fail­ures that have raised se­ri­ous ques­tions and con­cerns about AI be­ing a part of peo­ple’s lives.

One, she said, oc­curred when Uber self-dri­ving au­tonomous car killed a pedes­tri­an while un­der com­put­er con­trol.

“It’s been more than five years since Elaine Herzberg’s death, but the philo­soph­i­cal co­nun­drum be­came glar­ing­ly re­al: Who gets blamed for a road fa­tal­i­ty in an era of self-dri­ving cars, when hu­mans are es­sen­tial­ly babysit­ters of im­per­fect, still-learn­ing AI sys­tems? Is it the com­pa­ny with the erring car? Or the per­son be­hind the wheel who should have in­ter­vened?” Joseph-St Omer asked.

On the is­sue of health, CEO of Pa­tient Con­nect, Dr Navi Mu­radali who is an­oth­er HRMATT C-Suite pan­elist said AI in health­care can quick­ly process a lot of in­for­ma­tion, find pat­terns and han­dle rou­tine tasks.

How­ev­er, he not­ed hu­man in­tel­li­gence is cru­cial for em­pa­thy, mak­ing com­plex de­ci­sions, and solv­ing unique prob­lems. He said while AI can help im­prove ef­fi­cien­cy, the care and judge­ment of health­care pro­fes­sion­als are ir­re­place­able as the best care comes from us­ing both AI and hu­man skills to­geth­er

De­spite AI’s im­pres­sive ca­pa­bil­i­ties, Joseph-St Omer con­tends it lacks the in­her­ent cre­ativ­i­ty and em­pa­thy that are cru­cial as­pects of hu­man in­tel­li­gence.

“AI can­not repli­cate the depth of emo­tions and the abil­i­ty to think out­side the box as hu­mans can. When we con­sid­er the three ma­jor afore­men­tioned ex­am­ples where AI failed, we rec­og­nize that AI’s per­for­mance heav­i­ly re­lies on the qual­i­ty and quan­ti­ty of da­ta it re­ceives. In sit­u­a­tions with in­suf­fi­cient or bi­ased da­ta, AI may pro­duce in­ac­cu­rate re­sults or re­in­force ex­ist­ing prej­u­dices. And as AI be­comes in­creas­ing­ly preva­lent in de­ci­sion-mak­ing process­es, eth­i­cal con­cerns will arise. Ques­tions about ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, and bias in AI al­go­rithms must be ad­dressed to en­sure fair and just out­comes,” she ex­plained.

As ma­jor in­dus­tries in­te­grate AI in­to its op­er­a­tions, Joseph-St Omer main­tained the achieve­ments, such as per­son­alised health­care, au­tonomous ve­hi­cles, and im­proved cus­tomer ser­vice through chat­bots can­not be dis­count­ed.

How­ev­er, she em­pha­sised that while AI con­tributes to ef­fi­cien­cy and con­ve­nience, HI re­mains es­sen­tial in cre­ativ­i­ty, lead­er­ship, em­pa­thy and com­plex prob­lem-solv­ing that re­quire a hu­man touch.

“So rather than a show­down, AI and HI can com­ple­ment each oth­er. The sym­bio­sis of AI and HI al­lows for the in­te­gra­tion of AI’s ca­pa­bil­i­ties in­to hu­man ac­tiv­i­ties, en­hanc­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and well-be­ing,” Joseph-St Omer ad­vised.

She fur­ther rec­om­mend­ed that as the com­plex land­scape of AI and HI con­tin­ues to be nav­i­gat­ed the fu­ture be­longs to those who em­brace the pow­er of col­lab­o­ra­tion and in­no­va­tion.

“By har­ness­ing the syn­er­gies be­tween ar­ti­fi­cial and hu­man in­tel­li­gence, we can pave the way for a brighter, more in­clu­sive fu­ture where tech­nol­o­gy en­hances our lives with­out over­shad­ow­ing our hu­man­i­ty. The re­al­i­ty is the fu­ture work­place will be one where hu­mans work along­side AI tech. Let us pre­pare for it,” Joseph-St Omer sug­gest­ed.