• Friday, March 29, 2024
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‘Artificial Intelligence adoption as catalyst for sustainable development’

Artificial Intelligence

The adaptation of artificial intelligence (AI) by organisations that leverages technology in the 21st century drive for sustainability and growth, seeking to improve market share and grow its bottom-line is seen as a way of optimising the advantages of AI for greater outcomes especially to boost bottom-line and grow businesses, and achieve sustainable development.

“All said and done, there is a whole lot that we can use AI to help us with – reducing poverty, matching jobs with people, matching people looking for homes with homes that are available, and on the other hand we are going to create some serious unemployment especially with driverless cars; but we are also going to create jobs with more knowledge,” said Austin Okere, the founder and entrepreneur-in-residence Ausso Leadership Academy.

Okere was the guest speaker at the Institute of Directors’ (IoD) Nigeria February 2019 Members’ Evening, themed ‘Artificial Intelligence – Why it Matters’ held at the institute secretariat in Lagos.

According to Okere, it is no longer an issue if AI matters or not, as it has come to stay even though it has its negative and positive sides. According to him, AI has been adopted to improve agriculture, medicine, while is some cases it can also be deploy as an autonomous weaponry where a system is programmed to cause havoc.

“It has happen in Yemen where a drone was used to attack the person that was speaking. You also find that there is not any road to progress that is not risky – so, there are risks, but we have to manage the risk,” Okere stated.

Okere said the Nigerian financial sector can take advantage of the positive sides to AI. “When the rate of change in your environment is higher than the rate of change in the internal, then the end is insight. So, we have to make ourselves ready and embrace AI for the good part that we can benefit from it,” said Okere stating that the financial sector can deploy AI to predict hedge funds that makes better returns.

According to him, while hackers can easily break into the financial sector today unlike before when account holders move around with their physical cheque books; there are also cyber security software that the banks can deploy to protect their customers.

Ahmed Rufai Mohammed, President/Chairman of Council of the IoD Nigeria, said 2019 is looking very promising because we must continue to be optimistic of the future, both for ourselves and those behind us.

Mohammed stated that the IoD setup a committee in 2018 to handle the issues of ethical values, and as a result of that the IoD will have a code of ethics for directors in Nigeria. He opined that just like the code of corporate governance; the government will fully support the new initiative.

Mohammed said the ethical committee will ensure a clear and definite outline of ethical requirements of members and employees of the institute for a proper understanding and adherence to business standard and ensure that the institute is able to monitor the conducts of its members and employees.

 

SEYI JOHN SALAU