Artificial intelligence set to disrupt world again

Last week, I wrote about the development of co-working innovation spaces in South Africa as a strategy to encourage entrepreneurship. Innovation is seen as a key driver of job creation at a time when most African countries are facing a youth unemployment crisis. Research in computing, however, is tilting towards artificial intelligence (AI) that may be counterproductive to employment creation. Computing is slowly moving away from using elaborate instructions (codes) to execute functions to leveraging data and learning through algorithms that improve with experience to perform more complex activities that mimic human intelligence. There is growing fear that AI will in future eliminate most of the jobs that exist today. Google's Africa Internet Academy, which invited us to South Africa, is in the midst of emerging innovations.