Editorial | Boarding AI boat

Kirk-Anthony Hamilton is right in his call for Caribbean CEOs to robustly integrate artificial intelligence (AI) tools into their operations, or risk their businesses being left behind.

But, even as private firms, insofar as is possible, grasp the opportunities of these rapidly emerging technologies, there is also an urgent need for governments, too, to embrace AI systems, as well as create an environment that helps their societies to get the best value out of them. This includes attacking the region’s gaping education deficits, aggressively pursuing upskilling initiatives, and developing harmonised Caribbean Community (CARICOM) policies on data ownership, management and protection. Countries also have to expand and modernise their digital networks, which, we are aware, is already on CARICOM’s agenda.

At the domestic level, Jamaica has to accelerate the fleshing out and implementation of the recommendations – most of which are in broad sweeps – of the national task force on AI, whose report was delivered nearly a year ago. This should be high on the agenda for the new government after next month’s general election.

Mr. Hamilton is the CEO and co-founder of TechBeach Retreat, an annual technology gathering in Jamaica. Last week, he was among the presenters at the Caribbean Investment Forum in Montego Bay, where he warned that firms that didn’t embrace AI would miss the boat, with, in some cases, their spaces taken by “a kid in Kingston who has an entire business that he is running outside the ecosystem of Jamaica that doesn’t need a Caribbean bank anymore”.

Some of this is already happening, according to Mr Hamilton, who made it clear he was all in on AI. The technologies, he said, represented unprecedented opportunities for the Caribbean.

“I think you are going to see newly minted millionaires who are able to bypass a lot of the boundaries that our market unfortunately puts in place,” he said.

WEAK EDUCATIONAL BASE

While Mr Hamilton didn’t identify the types of businesses that would mint the millionaires, there is little doubt that artificial intelligence systems are opening new frontiers for, and enhancing efficiency in, business.

AI technologies are also being disruptive, which requires Caribbean economies to quickly adapt if they are not to shed jobs and be left further behind on the development totem pole.

For instance, in countries like Jamaica with substantial business outsourcing/call centre sectors, jobs are likely to fall under threat as chatbots and other systems assume many of the customer service functions now done by human agents. AI is also already taking over more complex tasks, such as in data analysis for consumer and logistics services.

But it is not only in business outsourcing operations (BPOs) that the danger exists. Domestic firms, too, are, and will be, increasingly adopting the new technologies, putting many jobs at risk. And many of these jobs, though seemingly complex, are relatively low on today’s AI food chain, which is advancing rapidly.

Jamaica and its CARICOM patterns, therefore, have an urgent and difficult challenge: they must upskill workers to do the types of, and likely higher-skilled, jobs that will come with the new technologies. And they must do so while fixing a weak educational base.

In Jamaica, for example, only four in 10 students sit five or more subjects in the regional Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams. While 77 per cent (14,600 out of 19,000 in 2024) of those students passed at least five of the subjects, only 33 per cent had maths and English language included in their five or more passes. Moreover, the students with English and mathematics being among their five or more passes account for only around 14 per cent of all students who enrol for the CSEC tests.

PRAGMATIC CONSIDERATIONS

This problem, of course, starts earlier. Up to a third of Jamaican children complete their primary education struggling to read and comprehend at their age and grade levels.

While Jamaica and other regional governments must urgently tackle these problems, they must simultaneously expand and fast-track training related to what the market demands, with significant emphasis on vocational training and digital literacy. Partnerships between the public and private sectors will be important. Other elements of labour market reform will have to take into account the new technologies.

But while this newspaper is clear that there is great value to be extracted from AI technologies, and recognises the potential for economies like Jamaica to leapfrog some tiers of development, we are not totally agnostic to the need to protect national interests or ethical issues that may arise with the growth of artificial intelligences.

For example, matters of privacy, ownership and portability of specific or metadata may well arise if, say, governments (or private companies) enter cloud-storing contracts with foreign private entities. There is the question of the kinds of guardrails that societies must have to ensure that the use of these technologies doesn’t transcend ethical norms.

CARICOM members should harmonise policies on these issues to give the region a better shot when they negotiate with powerful extra-regional entities that may own/control the technologies they utilise, and how the data they generate is stored.

But these pragmatic considerations mustn’t be hindrances to the embrace of AI technologies, lest the region, as Mr Hamilton warned, misses another boat.