A new report by the United Nations Development Program notes most of the gains from AI are likely to be reaped by wealthy nations unless steps are taken to use its power to help close gaps in access to basic needs, as well as such advanced know-how, AP reported.
The report released Tuesday likens the situation to the “Great Divergence” of the industrial revolution, when many Western countries saw rapid modernization while others fell behind.
Questions over how companies and other institutions will use AI are a near universal concern given its potential to change or replace some jobs done by people with computers and robots.
But while much of the attention devoted to AI focuses on productivity, competitiveness and growth, the more important question is what it will mean for human lives, the authors note.
“We tend to overemphasize the role of technology,” said Michael Muthukrishna of the London School of Economics, the report's main author, told reporters. “We need to ensure it’s not technology first, but its people first,” he said, speaking by video at the report’s launch in Bangkok.
The risk of exclusion is an issue for communities where most people are still struggling to access skills, electric power and internet connectivity, for older people, for people displaced by war, civil conflict and climate disasters. At the same time, such people may be “invisible” in data that will not take them into account, the report said.
MA/PR
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