From risks to rewards: Opportunities & challenges of AI

“AI is the pen, and we are the authors of the future. Let’s write a story worth telling”

 *Demetris Skourides – Chief Scientist for Research, Innovation and Technology

 Artificial intelligence technologies constitute an emerging field of knowledge, entrepreneurship, and everyday fiction, from which our lives are expected to improve dramatically.

By leveraging AI to transform our public sector, streamline decision-making, and enhance service delivery we will acquire a tool that will be a legacy for future generations.

It can make governmental services more efficient and accessible, as well as reskill the workforce so as to embed AI in growth, increase salaries, creating new opportunities.

Investment in STEM education and upskilling is very important in our future. We need to work on AI applications, linking citizens with public service, increasing productivity and providing better services.’

In “The Mind’s Mirror: Risk and Reward in the Age of AI”, Gregory Mone, and Daniela Rus share their deeply insightful reflections on the potential and limitations of AI, and the ethical values that it involves. The book shares deep insight into a complete overview of AI, all its risks and rewards, as a technology that very faithfully mirrors human cognition and decision-making progress.

AI is not a uniform single technology, but a set of technologies designed to do things that would require human intelligence. Specifically: learning, reasoning, problem solving, perception, and language understanding.

Machine learning and neural networks have significantly enhanced this situation, bolstered further by advances in data analytics. The ability of AI to work with large quantities of data to examine and extract patterns in recent years has allowed high-level efficiency and innovation in areas never before seen.

While on one hand, the technology can completely transform industries increase productivity and inspire creative thinking, on the other it sparks worries of job displacement and privacy along with ethical dilemmas. The development of AI and its adoption in our lives must be undertaken by a process of balance, prioritizing risk and ethics over speed and efficiency.  This prioritization essentially requires human in the loop approach where we re-enforce the strengths human have creativity, critical thinking social connection, with complementary strengths that technology can provide.  In doing so, we can create a recipe for growth where society benefits from increased productivity by automating regular duties, enabling businesses to be optimized, and accelerating the rate by which executives, managers and workers receive actionable insights.

The repetitive and monotonic tasks that AI replaces with automation allows citizens to serve and be served faster, reduce errors from administrative tasks, accelerate productivity, knowledge management. Offloading routine administrating tasks will enable humans to focus on quality, depth, providing deeper, more personal customer interactions.   According to a survey conducted Insight Enterprises, 66% of businesses leaders said that their productivity had increased after implementing AI tools.

The AI logic for decoding large datasets into something of essence is to change the game for decision-making processes. It does trend to identification, outcome prognosis, and operation optimization for such industry domains as finance, health and supply chain management According to Statista.com, the result of AI-driven data analysis could mean up to 40% higher productivity of employees.  In his seminal work IRREPLACEBLE, P.Bornet also highlights that in addition to the 30%+ increase in efficiency, companies should expect also a return of 40% in worker quality.

In our era, AI technologies can automate simple tasks and improve the quality of products by analysing data and providing real-time insights. For example, AI-powered workflow automation tools can analyse data to identify errors and provide recommendations for process improvements. For example, in the manufacturing sector, AI-powered predictive maintenance systems can be used to monitor the performance of equipment and predict when they are likely to fail and thereby reducing risks and maintenance costs.

A study by the World Economic Forum, also showcase that AI adoption may result in a 2.9% annual labour productivity growth in the United States. AI-enable personalization and recommendation platforms can also improve the level of costumer satisfaction and loyalty.  We have seen how companies such as Amazon have leveraged data and intelligence to create customer intimacy, wouldn’t it be great if our interactions with the public service departments also had this level of customer intimacy, reducing the time to provide a service, offering it at the ease of your fingertip?

AI presents serious ethical challenges even if it has enormous potential to boost creativity and productivity. It is critical to solve these issues to guarantee that AI technologies be created and used properly.

The quality of the data that AI systems are trained on determines how well they perform. The AI system is likely to reinforce any biases present in the training data. This may result in biased and unequal consequences, especially when it comes to hiring, financing, and law enforcement. To reduce prejudice, we must emphasize to the necessity of accountability and openness in AI decision-making.

Large volumes of personal data must be gathered and analyzed for AI to be widely used. This raises questions regarding the security and privacy of data. It is essential to make sure that AI systems adhere to data protection laws and prevent data breaches. One of the most important ethical factors in AI development according to Upwork, is data privacy.

AI’s ability to automate repetitive jobs may result in employment loss and economic disparity. Even if AI has the potential to generate new employment prospects, it is crucial to offer reskilling and upskilling programmes to assist employees in adjusting to their new jobs.  According to a Richmond Fed study, substantial workforce development expenditures will be necessary to realize AI’s potential for large-scale productivity benefits.

The introduction of the EU AI ACT provides a framework for leveraging AI by “taming” the technology in ways that do not harm humans.  Limiting the usage of AI to specific use-cases will create a learning environment where humans are in the loop, responsible for decision making, quality, reduction of bias.  Goverments will have to evaluate, and rethink how work is undertaken today, the skills required to pivot to the new seamless customer service of the future, and doing so will require a change in workplace culture, reskilling, upskilling and education.  In my opinion, as the Chief Scientist and Chairman of the National AI Task Force of Cyprus, the promise of seamless customer interaction and service, with reduced risk, bias can be combined with new high-tech and industry jobs, better healthcare accompanied with an improved work-life balance. To achieve this, we should embrace challenges as opportunities and find ways to reduce the risks to the minimum without missing the opportunity of growing and differentiating our economy.