Month: November 2021

Opening this highly interesting session on the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on humanity, its tremendous potential in meeting major global challenges such as health or climate change, and the fundamental issue of trust, moderator David Kirkpatrick, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Techonomy Media asked the panel of experts for a definition. Is AI really just software that can learn or make its own decisions whilst it operates – and why is this technology so different from other types of software?

Defining AI

Contrary to widespread and sometimes frankly frightening media misrepresentations, AI is not a threatening superhuman robot, stated Iveta Lohovska, Principal Data Scientist, HPE. Instead, at heart, “AI is nothing more than complex linear algebra”. Its power is unleashed by the combination of this linear algebra with extremely powerful computing and enormous data sets to feed into complex algorithms. Many people do not understand the technology, which creates fear and mistrust, but the only issues of concern are in terms of privacy and security, not the technology itself.

Dalith Steiger Co-Founder and Managing Partner, SwissCognitive strongly agreed that AI is about how technology can support humankind by accelerating capacity – not about robots. Cognitive technology may be a better way to describe it, she added, to avoid the idea of intentionally mimicking the human brain which is understood in the term “artificial” intelligence. It is important to understand the principle of the algorithms, but also to see that AI is essentially extremely sophisticated statistics. All statistical decisions depend on accurate and unbiased data. Any bias in this system comes from humans, who can undo that bias once aware of it, as “the algorithm just puts up a mirror.”

“We humans are now in a new age,” she added, and we have an opportunity to do more things differently. Every new technology has its downsides, so we need to focus on the positive, take responsibility for the risks and design to avoid known pitfalls. Cognitive technology forces us to think and challenge ourselves, with our core human competency of thinking in an emotional and inclusive way, and “the algorithms are there to support us where human beings are weak.”

For Wojciech Samek, Head of the Department of Artificial Intelligence and the Explainable AI Group at Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, what makes AI so special is its big promise in scientific applications. By allowing us to learn from the complex relationships of genetic, neural or protein expression data, for example, we have a tremendous opportunity to understand the physical and medical mechanisms hidden in the data. Explanation methods provide insights into why AI predicts what it does, allowing us to understand the system and the limitations of current AI models, to debug where necessary and refine solutions.

AI helps to fill the gaps in systems, projects and programmes that were too hard for other technology and which then fell back onto humans, said Zee Kin Yeong, Assistant Chief Executive (Data Innovation and Protection), IMDA (Singapore) and Deputy Commissioner, Personal Data Protection Commission. Bringing in enough data means we can create models on a probabilistic basis to make suggestions and bridge the gap. “It is not a panacea, but has a lot of potential to enable us to overcome what we previously knew were the limits of technology,” he said, mentioning how well optical character recognition now performs, following its switch to using data driven models.

“There were walls and dead ends which technology previously could not reach, and which AI allows us to reach now,” he continued, calling for as many companies as possible to understand this and know how to use AI, so that we can all benefit from economic progress.

Use cases

Cognitive technologies can amplify human capacity and improve aspects of life at a macro level, stated Kirkpatrick, but what concrete examples do we have of AI enabling things that can really impact lives?

In health care, AI can save lives and support humans by providing second medical opinions on diagnoses and screening, explained Steiger, as well as reducing costs in the healthcare industry. Developing technology with humans means merging the two for better outcomes; but we must take responsibility in how we design and develop, learning through iterative processes and incorporating ethical aspects.

Lohovska agreed that AI has a critical role to play in tackling the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, particularly on health through the use of precision medicine. This includes remote sensing, collecting anonymized medical data and imaging to enrich data sets and create a narrative at micro or macro level that can make a huge difference. Using AI in this way is where we should focus our energy, rather than on marketing, she pointed out. Much like the internet, AI technologies can be used for good or for bad, but as long as, on average, the positive outweighs the negative, we are on the right track.

A prime example of the success of AI in healthcare, panellists agreed, was the swift procurement of the COVID-19 vaccine. Building on the breakthroughs and experiences of earlier programmes such as Ebola, together with advances in genomics and pharmaceuticals, AI was used to create a COVID-19 vaccine within two weeks, with the rest of the development time spent on trials and approvals. Progress here is exponential, not linear. “The combination of different technologies,” highlighted Kirkpatrick, “is where we get the most societal power for progress, there are so many areas where technology is advancing at the same time  and these technologies work in tandem.”

The power of combined technologies is also evident in precision agriculture, where smart sensors using AI and IoT are distributed in remote locations where no information is otherwise available. The data provided on the evolving situation on the ground, the impact of climate change or water scarcity, for example, enables resources to be adjusted and distributed very specifically. Precision agriculture is already happening across much of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, explained Lohovska, deepening our understanding of how crops work with changing environmental factors. We have sufficient proof of the benefits of the technology from initial use cases and “we now need to scale this to a level where humanity in general can benefit, not just small groups,” she added.

The massive set of climatic problems we are facing as a planet can also be better addressed by AI tools. “AI is an enabler of technologies on a macro level,” said Samek, creating new business insights and making life easier. Climate research is very complex, and AI can help us understand the process, provide better tools for decisions, manage and analyze major data sets.

Alongside new business models and augmenting human capacity, Steiger stressed the need to discuss the opportunities opened up for disabled people by technological advancement. For the first time, people with disabilities can join the workforce and be fully integrated into society – and we take this important advancement into account when discussing the threat to jobs AI might pose in other areas.

Trust issues

Yeong explained that the commonsensical elements of consumer trust – based on experience with a product, service or company, meeting customer expectations, the reputation of the company and its engagement with its customers – also apply to trust in AI products and services. Once trust is established, consumers will buy and use AI products, enabling companies to invest further in development of products or implementation in operations and processes to deliver better services, in a virtuous circle.

Ensuring good governance structures within companies, with the right decisions made at the right level within companies, is therefore critical to maintaining company reputations and establishing trustworthy AI. To work correctly, the AI model then requires good quality data which is from the right sources, sufficiently representative, and monitored in its development. The end user is then given a trusted, rich and fulfilling experience, with reasonable rather than radical recommendations. Communication with the customer is also important, providing the right amount of information at the right time. Transparency and explainability are high level concepts: consumer trust comes down to providing sufficient information to convince a user to buy the product or service; providing enough information to explain how the product works or recommendations are made; and having the opportunity, where a decision effects the user, to understand why it was made, and to challenge it if unhappy.

The technological, legal and social aspects of an AI product or service must all be considered to reach unified agreement on trustworthy AI, said Lohovska. This involves building definitions for trustworthiness in different governments, societies and communities – and then building ethical principles around this. As a global technological player, HPE take into account the principles of privacy and security; a human focus in terms of compliancy with law enforcement and the individual in the loop; inclusivity; responsibility and robustness; and embracing good biases whilst minimizing bad biases, as sometimes embedding biases in the data set or algorithm will produce the best outcome. It is helpful to apply lessons learnt in building software into the complexity of AI systems rather than reinventing everything.

Cause for concern?

“AI gives us a fundamentally new set of capabilities for manipulating data, with ramifications in every realm,” said Kirkpatrick. Perhaps, however, the gap between ordinary citizens and the creators and appliers of AI technology is too large, particularly given how control of, and access to, giant data sets is concentrated in the hands of a very limited number of major global companies.

For Lohovska, this is not be a major concern. There are software patches to improve biases or cyber security, but not for ignorance – here, the only solution is education, she stressed. We need to be fully informed on the topic, what threats are real and what is hyped by the media, and better understand the issues of data privacy and data security embedded in AI by governments and corporate initiatives. The scale of change may be frightening, so big corporates, governments and civic communities should make people aware of the measures and techniques that can be used within AI, balancing the need to regulate for privacy and security against allowing for innovation and growth.

AI offers many new services to help us and make life easier, agreed Samek.  International initiatives to create certificates of trustworthiness are important to build the trust that AI models are working as expected in sensitive applications such as healthcare. We can also reuse or repurpose procedures and concepts established in other fields, such as drug design, to create trust in technology and demonstrate its reliability. These factors are important in AI, but “people should not worry about it, but should seize the opportunity offered.”

It is a foregone conclusion that our lives will be effected in positive ways by AI, said Yeong. Our dependence on AI will grow as it becomes more and more convenient, and we must be aware of how this very convenience can restrict our options. If we rely on social media for our news, for example, we are limiting ourselves and our exposure to the world. We need to understand and correct our behavior or change our habits as necessary. Learning to live with AI as a tool means being able to edit the recommendations AI provides or reconfigure AI tools to change future recommendations. Knowledge of how AI works and how we can best use it is important to avoid being reliant on it – it should serve us as the end users.

The panel agreed on the need for active discussions on giving agency in AI systems to ordinary citizens, providing them with more knowledge and control. Creating awareness of cognitive technologies and concrete use cases, and explaining its use in simple language, will bring more people on board.

This applies equally to policy makers using AI in government as to businesses implementing it in their projects or consumers making use of it in their daily lives. There is no substitute for the learning effect of first hand personal experience of AI, its benefits and limitations, added Yeong.

Ways forward

“AI will be more and more a basic infrastructure like electricity, across all industries, commodities and technologies,” said Steiger, pointing out that it will increasingly be used in combination cybersecurity, blockchain or other developments.

From a macro perspective, it is absolutely crucial for as many companies as possible to understand and know how to use AI to enable us to benefit from the economic progress it promises, said Yeung. Tackling the obstacles of consumer fear, uncertainty and lack of trust in AI means investing in developing technologies, skilled engineers and project managers to understand its strategic importance – and communicate it through “trustworthy AI and public awareness programmes to demystify AI.”

At governmental level, there are increasing numbers of national strategies to reap the benefit of AI, with international organizations providing guidance and support to policy makers on where to invest in research education and civil society. AI technologies are seen as critical for delivering public services within the digital economy, but governments must drive awareness to ensure AI is more widely implemented throughout the private sector.

“Today AI is a huge collection of narrow models trained to do specific things on different data sets,” he said, and we need to see how we can bring this together and reach as many companies as possible to promote the use of AI in the economy. Establishing consumer trust in AI is imperative.

“The more we know, the better we can be supported by AI,” said Steiger, calling for maximum openness and data sharing, balanced against privacy concerns, for the wider good of society. Only then can data be inclusive, diverse and unbiased – and AI ethical.

Large tech companies such as HPE must be involved in discussions on the complexity and ethics of AI, as the solutions and products they develop have a huge impact on so many individuals around the world, added Lohovska. .

Closing thoughts

It is very important for us all to be more aware of the degree to which these new cognitive technology systems are affecting our lives, given their power and potential, stated Kirkpatrick.

For Samek, “what is important is to make progress in the field of AI is collaboration,” establishing transparency by providing code, open source and model initiatives in research as well as open data, speeding progress by reusing models and data for different purposes. .

At a human and societal level, we should focus on building “data-native communities who are numeric and can understand the concepts,” said Lohovska, to challenge technological organizations with different perspectives.  At the individual user level, we need to look more at the terms and conditions of products and services using AI to understand what we agreeing to, and the trade-off between our data and the services we are using.

Addressing the concern that an AI gap may grow between developed and developing nations on the lines of the digital divide, Yeong pointed out that volume of data is what is important for AI development, so the key is to get the technology into as many hands as possible. As so many AI models are open source, given sufficient data sets it should be possible to create a start-up culture in developing countries, with support and training assistance provided by developed countries.

A final thought from Steiger closed the session: “We do have the emotional intelligence of the human being and the rise of AI, so we are talking about AI and the human being together. We have to shift from technologically literate people to people-literate technology.”

Digital skills are necessary to survive and thrive in the digital world, but who should be responsible for delivering and funding training, and how can we create an inclusive, meaningful roadmap to the digital future? asked moderator Paul Conneally, Head of Global Communications, Livetiles, as he set the scene for a fascinating panel discussion on upskilling us all in the digital era.

Rapid digitalization

“Rapid digitalization resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic means we are at an inflection point today when it comes to digital skills training. The digital skills gap is widening,” and if our current efforts in providing digital skills training were on track, this would not be the case, warned Dorothy Gordon, Chair, Information for all Programme, United Nations Educational; Scientific and Cultural Organization, in her opening keynote.

She addressed some very real practical concerns in providing appropriate digital training to the next billion to come online; people already being forced to use e government services rolled out quickly due in response to the pandemic; university students being trained on obsolete technology; or corporate employees where training is the responsibility of a line manager unequipped to assess training supplier. Additionally, many of us have experienced poorly designed, dull or irrelevant digital skills training, and without tracking the impact of current training programmes, we will continue to waste resources. How can we improve the situation?

“We need to create networks and working methodologies, feedback loops that allow potential employers to communicate the skill sets they need, and how well the people who have come through training fit those needs,” she said. Despite the difficulties in establishing strong public-private sector relationships, “we need strong links with business and the public sector so we can understand and establish current and future needs”, she continued, pointing out that countries have adopted national competency frameworks to track digital skills aligned to goals. This allows for the coordination and establishment of clear evaluation metrics and guidelines for training, including non-traditional pathways into the tech industry.

Gordon outlined a number of further measures to deliver meaningful digital skills, including bringing on board universities, education professionals and law schools to upgrade content and curricula to meet the needs of digital transformation; rolling out open source solutions to large number of students, so that they are familiar with relevant software before joining the workplace; setting up registers of experienced training providers; focusing on quality content and design; exploring audio visual content and micro learning in local languages; and establishing clear return on investment criteria for training programmes and trainers.

The situation urgently calls for a different approach favouring rapid, iterative testing and continuous feedback to understand whether training is impactful or not, and where or how it may need to be tweaked. “These are very complex problems, and if we want to have the scale and impact we are looking for, we need people to think systematically about this, taking digital skills from the margins of the development agenda to being central to our development agenda,” she concluded.

A developmental priority

Underscoring the importance of government in driving digital skills development, Ursula Ekuful-Owusu, Minister of Communications and Digitalization, Ghana, explained how ICT development policies are inextricably linked with economic policies, as technology is key to economic growth and national relevance in the 4^th industrial revolution. “There is no disconnect between digitalization and economic development,” she stated.

The Ghana Digital Economy Policy sets out the use of digital tools in economic development, and addresses regulatory and legal frameworks, digital skills, infrastructure, different technologies and affordability issues. E government tools including data acquisition and analytics are improving government efficiency and increasingly used for policy formulation and implementation, outlined the Minister. Providing digital skills to young people especially is key for them attract and retain the digital jobs increasingly being created.

“It is a developmental and security imperative, as, if we provide young people in Africa with the digital skills they need today, they can thrive tomorrow. They can be the human resource pool for running digital installations around the globe,” she said, citing the comparison between Africa’s demographic dividend and the aging populations of Asia and Europe. Policy makers must ensure they are delivering young people with the tools they need to thrive – rather than being forced into illegal immigration.

Ekuful-Owusu gave the example of a young girl on a recent digital training course in Ghana who felt ill at being asked to use a mouse, as she thought it was a rodent – but after just one week’s basic education was able to build and present her own website. “So what can our young people not do if given in depth instruction in the digital skills they require?” she asked.

Knowledge is power, but accessing knowledge in the digital era means moving beyond books to the new world of digital literacy, stated Alfie Hamid, Corporate Affairs Senior Manager for Global Partnerships, Cisco Systems. He explained how ITU and Cisco are working together through Digital Transformation Centres designed to empower people everywhere with digital skills, focusing on sectors of the community in developing countries largely ignored to date – such as local farmers or housekeepers unaware of the existence or relevance of the internet to their daily lives in a changing world, “this sector and population of the globe, millions who have been left behind by others.” No one should be left behind in the digital era.

The 4^th industrial revolution impacts on cognitive as well as physical labour. Equipping everyone with digital skills to benefit is imperative to protect and boost livelihoods. Beyond simple digital skills, basic training includes cybersecurity so that no one loses money or information online, and the ability to filter news to separate misinformation from true, useful and relevant data.

Media and information training is an important part of UNESCO’s Information for All Programme, agreed Gordon. The aim is to build strong partnerships between the private sector, government and civil society to track what is happening currently in digital skills training, illustrate best practice and demonstrate true, inclusive knowledge sharing. Some major challenges remain, such as fully developing the metrics for assessing training, evaluation frameworks and feedback loops between different partners.

Every country should put digital skills at the centre of its development agenda, she added, urging the international community to look beyond “donor darlings” – countries with relatively high levels of security, which are safe and pleasant to visit and invest in. It is precisely the smaller and more vulnerable countries with difficult security situations which need investment in digital skills training from donors to provide young people with hope, assurance and opportunity. “In a spirit of pan-Africanism, let me urge us to give more attention to those countries where no one seems to want to go,” she said, calling for mapping of donor and development activity around the world to track gaps in digital skills provision amongst vulnerable groups such as women and those living in poverty.

The private sector’s role

Upskilling matters to Microsoft and its mission to empower everyone and every organization to achieve more, stated Naria Santa Lucia, General Manager of Digital Inclusion and US Community Engagement, Microsoft, speaking of the need for the private sector to take a role in driving digital literacy around the world. It is important to think about providing digital skills in an equitable way, particularly given the catalysing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on digital transformation around the world. We will soon reach a point where every job will be a tech-enabled job, so it is critical to close the gap in skills now.

Providing opportunity to as many people in as many places as possible, she continued, is both a moral imperative and a business need. The private sector must work in partnership with the public sector, NGOs and agencies to provide innovative digital skills solutions at scale, leveraging community trust and engineering expertise.  Sharing data on the level of digital literacy in different states in the USA allows public and private sectors alike to see where dollars and resources should be concentrated, as well as creating better solutions to bring people online and build the skills for the future workforce.

She outlined Microsoft’s holistic approach to leveraging data from different segments and social media such as LinkedIn to see what key growth areas and main goals and skills are needed for a specific role, providing relevant learning content and associated certificates. “We need to keep learning and go deeper, this is such a growth sector that we need to do targeted skilling and really bridge the gap,” she said, calling on the private sector to act together, innovate and take good ideas to scale through government and NGO partners.

For Christopher Patnoe, Head of Accessibility and Disability Inclusion, Google Inc., incorporating digital skills and technologies in traditional education is important – but non-traditional education is equally critical in providing the opportunity to develop passions and drive new ideas.

We need to ask people what works and what does not work in education, with a view to fixing what is wrong, he said.  Are we speaking the right language, both literally and figuratively –  do learning initiatives resonate, is material accessible, can people find the materials to learn what they want in the way they want to? Reinventing education in the video age of TikTok and YouTube will reach young people in a way that traditional systems cannot. Given the changing nature of work and school, digital skills are increasingly important, and “schools should be able to teach people to use the tools of today,” so that they are equipped and educated to be employable in the jobs of tomorrow.

Providing meaningful skills means fixing underlying issues and local contexts, he added. Technology designed for people with no physical constraints or with no restrictions on electricity or WiFi access, for example, will not work in other conditions. Technology companies need to work with researchers, government and local start up communities to explore what is broken and how to fix it, depending on the target user and who they are trying to serve, talking to the people on the ground and collaborating across sectors to provide solutions.

Upskilling young people, women and girls

Youth capacity development, particularly in STEM skills, is critical to the economic growth of least developed countries, highlighted Shergaun Roserie, Digital Youth Envoy of Generation Connect Americas Youth Group and Founder, Orbtronics. “It is important for young people to be productive when they are energetic, healthy and imaginative so that they are not left without opportunities for personal success,” he stressed, outlining the youth programmes he has developed as part of his business in Santa Lucia.

Ensuring a feedback loop between programmes and making sure participants actually benefit from what they are taught is key; this data can then inform further education programmes targeting the areas young people need and are interested in. The mode of delivery is also important, so that young people are more receptive to the information they are being taught. Adapting both traditional educational methods and curricula will enable young people to learn better – and to develop the critical thinking skills essential for innovation. “These positive effects will extend throughout society,” he added, “and will maintain low levels of crime, increase government tax revenue, and also reduce expenses on judicial, penal and welfare systems.”

The key constraints preventing greater adoption of digital learning in educational systems are the lack of an established tech-based curriculum, the lack of teaching staff trained to deliver tech content effectively and, in many developing countries in particular, the absence of facilities such as computer labs or innovative training centres. In addition, institutions in many least developed countries do not offer technical training as there is a lack of demand for technical staff in the workforce.

Young people are not represented adequately at national or administrative levels, said Roserie, calling for greater inclusion of youth leaders and champions in the digital sector. Collaboration is the driving force behind the tech industry, and young people must take the opportunity to tap into open source resources to access valuable information. A network of mentors and experts should support academic and training opportunities for all. “Youth must see technology for what it is: a tool. What really matters is creativity and innovation to make a difference,” through the application of digital skills, he concluded.

Valerie Waswa, Digital Youth Envoy of Generation Connect Africa Youth Group and Program Director at Village Pillars Empowerment Project, outlined her experience starting up several NGO grassroots initiatives aimed at empowering young women with skills to enter the digital economy in Kenya. Delivering digital skills effectively means looking pragmatically at the unique challenges many women face – and providing practical solutions. Many young women in rural communities are responsible for several children, so a formal educational environment would not work: a digital learning hub needs to include child care facilities of some sort. Equally, students affected by period pain may miss several critical days of training per month, so it is important to factor in updates and provide regular recaps to prevent loss of momentum.

Positive discrimination, or affirmative action focusing solely on women, is the only way to ensure as many young girls and women in rural areas as possible are reached and provided with access to digital literacy skills, explained Waswa. Those digital skills are critical to enabling women to earn an income and access opportunities. Often, her skills training programmes have to start with the basics of learning English, learning to type or simply learning how to turn on a computer. But skills learnt through these courses have transformed lives, she said, giving the example of small business owners selling products online, reaching new markets and increasing business, students working in cyber cafes – or even starting their own in the communities.

Responding to an audience question on the role of mobile phones in facilitating digital skills training, Hamid urged that any training should be mobile first and provide content at a pace defined by the user, following the streaming model. Waswa added that access to digital training may be more affordable on mobile, and more relevant to daily life, as it is the device most likely to be used in developing countries.

Streaming on mobile fits with the open education resources approach, where content is sliced so people can share and consume at their own pace and in any location, agreed Gordon. But given that not all content is suited to this approach – super computer programming, for example, is not effective on mobile devices – she argued for a blended approach on multiple platforms seen through the lens of lifelong learning.

It is also important, Santa Lucia pointed out, to partner learners on mobile devices or other online modes with a pathway guide or sponsor to ensure they keep on track, are held accountable and can be supported to complete the course.

Levelling up: opportunities for all

Digital skills are paramount for nations and economies to play a meaningful role in the 4^th industrial revolution, stated Roserie, as well as to improve the quality of life of people beyond the workplace.  The jobs of the future are not necessarily those of today, so what we learn today matters more in the long term, agreed Patnoe.

The time to act is now, said Santa Lucia, as otherwise inequality in talent and opportunity will accelerate.

“Digital skills is a concept that does not exist in a vacuum,” said Waswa, calling for underrepresented groups such as women to be provided with digital hubs and training centres to equip them with skills – and enable them to continue putting those skills into practice.

We need to clarify the paths to the actual learning goals we want to achieve and put in place a framework to track our progress towards these goals, and evaluate whether these approaches actually work or not, highlighted Gordon.

“We are in this together, but working together we can really make a difference in giving us all the skills that we need to thrive in the 4^th industrial revolution. We need to focus on it and pool our resources to get it done,” summed up Ekuful-Owusu.

“Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not,” concluded Conneally. Digital skills are imperative to creating an inclusive, dynamic and fully participative digital economy; digital education should be based on open resources, localised and relevant content, digital skills be seen as a lifelong learning process. Measuring the impact of digital skills training is critical, including some form of visualization of current and future training through global mapping. Digital skills and education services should be fit for purpose for young people, the leaders and entrepreneurs of tomorrow; and in additional to technological innovation, innovation in critical thinking must be encouraged to enable as many people as possible to have access to digital skills training and the social and economic benefits that ensue.