The topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its current and future implications on humans was one of the topics fiercely debated on Friday July 7th 2023 when the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College (SALCC) debating team went up against The Dominica State College’s debating team.
The topic for the debate was “The benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) outweigh the potential risk to humanity”, and the SALCC team had the task of proposing the topic.
Mr. Jim Joseph, Managing Director of the firm Map and IT Solutions Ltd, an Information Management and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Consultant, worked with the students from SALCC to prepare them for this important event.
This involved ensuring that the team understood what AI is, its history, the benefits and risk associated with AI and how its benefits can be leveraged to improve efficiency, productivity, mitigate against risks and improve the quality of life for humans.
In making their case, the Saint Lucia team emphasized the point that AI and robotics are part of the 4th stage of the industrial revolution and just like previous stages where the use of steam engines, electricity, the automobile, the telephone, the personal computers and the internet radically changed the way of life for people, for the stage of the industrial revolution, with the disruptions, AI would see the retooling, upskilling, reskilling of people, creation of new jobs, improved efficiencies, provide breakthroughs, increased speed of information processing and increases in access to information.
In countering the points of the Dominica State College, in their rebuttal, the SALCC team focused on the areas of fear, loss of jobs, security and the prospect of sentience or the singularity, which refers to a hypothetical future point in time where AI will surpass human intelligence, leading to a profound impact on humanity.
The SALCC team stressed the point that humans always fear what they do not understand, that current measures like the recent European Union (UN) draft AI policy, the recent discussions with AI developers in Washington and the implementation of regulations and standards would help in addressing the fears.
They made the point that AI is here to stay and that we as humans have to use AI to benefit us and to use AI to mitigate against any risks and to assist in attaining a better quality of life by making AI work for us.
Areas cited included autonomous vehicles providing former taxi drivers time to interact with the tourists and passengers instead of having to focus on the roads, that doctors can use AI to quickly scan medical images to quickly come up with diagnosis of diseases or illnesses, or using AI to improve efficiencies in the public sector so that the workers can now better serve the public, or using AI to increase agricultural or farming yields.
AI can be used to scan for vulnerabilities or threats to breaches in the financial sectors or to safeguard the investments of persons.
Map and IT Solutions Ltd (MAPIT) will be conducting another workshop/training entitled “Artificial Intelligence (AI) In Business – Practical ways you can safely implement AI solutions”.
The workshop takes place on Monday 24th July 2023 from 9:00 to 1:00pm at a cost of EC$250.00. Businesses are encouraged to take advantage of this reduced pricing. You can Whatsapp or call 7141451 to register for the training or you can speak to Jim Joseph about your business needs.
Register before Friday 14th July 2023 to secure your spot.
SOURCE: Map and IT Solutions Ltd
Well done Team SALCC and by extension Team St. Lucia!
Congratulations SALCC. This article was just a press release for Map IT Solutions Ltd. There is no mention of the Dominican teams arguments. Very unbalanced just free advertising for Map IT Solutions Ltd. Choops