Artificial intelligence will not displace people at work because it remains limited in comparison to humans, but AI can be used to augment a workforce.
That is according to AI scientist and advisor to governments Inma Martinez who emphasised the urgent need to regulate AI use by companies when she addressed Abta’s Travel Convention in Bodrum on Tuesday.
She argued: “Advanced AI is interesting in development in a lab, but the minute you use it in industry it has to follow the same regulations as other products.”
Martinez is co-chair of the steering committee at the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI) set up by the G7 group of countries.
She told the Convention: “We are demanding protocols be put in place so AI is safe. The G7 countries are leading the way [on this].”
Martinez noted that when advanced AI models became capable of facial recognition and detection of health conditions in 2018, “the G7 began to think ‘We need to get hold of AI’.”
She added: “Everyone who builds content is concerned about AI.”
But she insisted: “People make the difference in companies. You can have the same technology, the same money, the same markets. People make the difference.
“Are we going to allow AI to displace people? No. Machines don’t have the tacit knowledge of humans. AI systems can only go to libraries containing existing things. A machine is limited. It can’t compete on certain aspects with humans.
“We can do inductive thinking [moving from specific observations to general conclusions] and deductive thinking [moving from general ideas to specific conclusions] at the same time.”
Martinez argued: “The augmentation of existing workforces by AI can help those workforces do their jobs better. AI will create jobs rather than kill jobs.”
She urged Convention attendees to “embrace technology for what it can bring you”. However, she warned businesses to consider: “How are you training these [generative AI] models? Do you have the right to the data you are training them on?”