BUSINESSES adopting artificial intelligence will enable lower-wage workers to ‘retrain’ into other roles to boost declining productivity and creativity in the workforce, according to a technology expert.
Sebastian Lawson, the head of projects at Digital Jersey, spoke out after it was recently revealed that the Island would have to increase productivity by at least 7.5% over the next 17 years to support its ageing population.
If productivity was not increased, the population would have to rise to 150,000, according to the Population Policy Annual Report released this month.
Mr Lawson said Digital Jersey was working with the government to boost digital skills in the workplace.
He said: ‘Automation and artificial intelligence isn’t putting people out of work, but it’s enabling businesses to do more work with the same number of people and increase the productivity of the existing resource on the Island.’
He added that ‘over the next few years’ workplaces could see changes in adopting the technology.
‘We’ve already seen this technology adopted in some places, but now we’re moving out of the early-adopter phase into a position where some businesses are making decisions around these technologies.’
Mr Lawson said: ‘It reduces labour costs, and lower-wage workers can be retrained and increase their skills into different areas, improving the overall quality of living. On top of that, it gives us huge economic growth. The potential for automation in our economy is vast, the risk of not doing it far outweighs the risk of doing it.’
‘By reducing the number of lower-skilled workers, it also opens up additional innovation on the Island. Humans can come up with creative solutions when released to their full potential, and we can bring immense creativity to the workforce.’
He added that he was unable to specify which roles would be replaced ‘at this stage’ and there was ‘still lots of work to be done’.
‘If you’ve got someone who is potentially shifting what they’re doing today to another role with some extra training, we have a direct increase in skilled labour,’ Mr Lawson said.
‘It’s important to make sure that Digital Jersey and the government bring the whole population of Jersey on the journey with AI. It is about bringing people on the journey and everyone can see the benefits in place.’
