With artificial intelligence tools threatening to replace Filipino workers in jobs and disrupting workplace, the Department of Information and Communication Technology said Thursday it is preparing for the potential effects of AI development.
DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy believes this can be addressed by teaching and training Filipinos to work with AI so they can adapt.
“People ask me, ‘Will AI replace a person in his job?’ The way I see it, no.
AI will not replace the person. What will replace the person is another person who knows how to use AI,” he said in an ABS-CBN report.
“That’s why it’s critical that we, by understanding how AI works, should learn how to leverage it, how to use it in order to empower our workforce and our people,” the DICT chief said.
He also urged the government to regulate AI as the technology “lacks humanity.”
While some will eventually lose jobs to AI-powered tools, some jobless Pinoys may eventually be employed thanks to the technology, so Uy said it is important to train “our own people, re-skill them, retool them so that they become adept at utilizing AI as a tool rather than being enslaved by AI.”
Artificial intelligence is changing the way things are being done, the secretary said.
“This disruptive technology will have a significant effect on our labor force, on our workforce, and we need to build up our digital work force on how they will have to work with AI in the future and in order to secure our current status,” Uy said.
He said the AI revolution “is progressing at a much faster, much bigger scale than anyone ever anticipated or dreamed of. AI is emotionless, it does not adhere to morality or ethics, it’s pure logic and intelligence, and that is a cause of concern.”
“Without proper regulation by government, it could become dangerous, it could become destructive as it evolves. And it’s evolving very very fast,” Uy added.