The purpose of artificial intelligence is to amplify human potential, says Dr Ayesha Khanna. But that means displacing a lot of human labour, especially in industries like property and construction. How can we prepare?
Khanna is co-founder and director of the Hybrid Reality Institute, a research and advisory group focused on emerging technologies and their policy and economic consequences. Among her clients are Singapore’s largest public transport and telecommunications companies, Japan’s largest insurance firm and Pakistan’s largest bank.
A strategic advisor to corporations and governments on artificial intelligence, smart cities and fintech, Khanna also sits on the board of the Singaporean government’s Infocomm Media Development Authority.
Khanna is heading to Australia in September to speak at The Property Congress and to share her insights into building a smart nation. And she has a depth of insights to share as a citizen of arguably the world’s smartest nation, Singapore.
Last year, the Singapore Government laid out its Smart Nation blueprint for a digital economy, government and society, which emphasises upskilling “because around 40 per cent of all job tasks will be lost to automation” Khanna says.
The banking sector contributes around a quarter of Singapore’s GDP. But a recent EY report, commissioned by the Institute of Banking and Finance Singapore and the Monetary Authority of Singapore, found that around 100 of 121 financial services job roles will be either displaced or dramatically altered by robotic process automation, advanced analytics and AI.
While jobs such as branch tellers, loan officers and call centre representatives may disappear, jobs that use AI and data to create new “insights up the value chain” will emerge,” she says.
We’ll see a similar pattern emerge in the property and construction industry, whether that’s bricklaying robots, automated leasing agents or surveying drones.
“There’s no doubt some tasks will be lost to automation but it’s no good putting our heads in the sand and pretending it won’t happen. We need to prepare people,” she says.
Singapore’s evolution to a smart nation means more than investing in technology, Khanna argues. “It means thinking about skills, preparing people, and investing in the ecosystem for the fourth Industrial revolution”.
The Singaporean Government is democratising its services to the cloud, subsidising AI start-ups, investing in education and the industries of the future, and creating products that will drive the smart nation forward.
“It is the responsibility of governments and companies to provide a bridge, and the responsibility of individuals to wake up and prepare their children for lifelong learning rather than living in fear.”
Khanna says the benefits of artificial intelligence are too big to ignore and will influence “every part of our lives and every part of the property and construction lifecycle”.
Every company in the property and construction industry can embrace AI to reduce costs and wastage, increase revenues and profit margins, and create better experiences for customers, she says.
A recent report from McKinsey, for example, finds that AI and analytics in construction have “boundless potential” as investment doubles over the last decade.
“But AI has to be run by people who understand the business problems. A robot doesn’t program itself. It can’t connect the dots between a strategy and an action – it’s a cog in the machine. Yes, it’s a more intelligent cog, but we need humans to understand the larger strategy.”
Removing the repetitive tasks from our jobs will be a relief, and we will learn to work side by side with “co-bots”, Khanna adds.
Khanna, who is the founder Empower: AI for Singapore, is passionate about helping young people to harness the power of AI. And she doesn’t lose sleep about whether the robots will take over.
“The thing that I worry about is not that AI will become a super-intelligent being. I worry that it will fall into the wrong hands and that we won’t have the proper governance to protect us. The AI and algorithms that can be used to detect breast cancer can also be the foundation that drives fake news, for example.”
Singapore is already ahead of the curve when it comes to ethics and AI, though, and Khanna applauds the set of principles released by the Monetary Authority of Singapore to promote accountability and transparency in the use of AI and data analytics in finance.
“All technology has pros and cons – we need to govern it, and to teach everyone from children to engineers to consider the pros, cons and unintended consequences. The good news is that AI is very much in our control.”
Join Dr Ayesha Khanna at The Property Congress on Hamilton Island from 11-13 September. Book online today.