Artificial intelligence presents a moral dilemma - The Mail & Guardian

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the world has grown increasingly reliant on artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Thousands of new innovations -- from contact-tracing apps to the drones delivering medical equipment -- sprang up to help us meet the challenges of Covid-19 and life under lockdown. The unprecedented speed with which a vaccine for Covid-19 was discovered can partly be attributed to the use of AI algorithms which rapidly crunched the data from thousands of clinical trials, allowing researchers around the world to compare notes in real time. As Satya Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft observed, in just two months, the world witnessed a rate of digital transition we'd usually only see in two years. In 2017, PWC published a study showing that adoption of AI technologies could increase global GDP by 14% by 2030. In addition to creating jobs and boosting economies, AI technologies have the potential to drive sustainable development and even out inequalities, democratising access to healthcare and education, mitigating the effects of climate change and making food production and distribution more efficient.