By Fredrick Wright
CONTRARYto widely held fears that the increased use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will lead to massive job losses globally, a Nigerian AI expert has stated that the fears are exaggerated.
Professor Bart Nnaji, Nigeria’s former Minister of Science and former Distinguished Professor of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering at the University of Massachusetts where he was also the Director of the Robotics and Automation Laboratory, told participants in the 2023 Annual Public Service Lecture of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management (CIPM) that those who are likely to be affected adversely by the impending AI Revolution are “those who do clerical and administrative jobs and perform other repetitive tasks that generative AI can do better and faster”.
Customer service teams will also be affected, according to Nnaji, who was also the Minister of Power for one year under the President Goodluck Jonathan administration, citing the example of the United Kingdom where some companies have already replaced their customer service teams with generative AI without reports of decline in service quality.
Nnaji argued that AI will increase productivity and help many workers retain their jobs, as discovered in a recent study by a team of Standford and Massachusetts of Technology (MIT) researchers in the United States.
“Those who regularly train, retrain, learn, unlearn, and relearn, given the rapidity of generative AI developments, which would seem to make a month look like an eternity in the new brave world, will be critically needed talent”, he remarked.
He stated that talent will be needed in all fields because AI is a tool and not a human.
“Even in radiology where AI is performing wonders in clinical analysis”, he noted, “medical doctors are still needed”.
He cautioned academics and other researchers on over reliance on large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT because they are prone to error.
“Many references by ChatGPT have been found to be either incorrect or non-existent, which could lead to charges of academic fraud against those who rely on the models unduly”, saying that “imperfections of AI technology underscore the need for talent, that is, a knowledgeable and skilled workforce in every organisation”.
Nnaji observed that despite such lapses in generative AI as the perpetration of bias and stereotypes because the digital systems train on existing data to generate information, AI has “become a most important and indispensable part of our work in the private and public sectors”.
He called on the Nigerian government to help create an AI culture in the country so that Nigeria can become a significant player in this field.
He said that the nation’s top leadership must go out of its way to understand AI so that it can make the right policies.
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