Zethu Lubisi Response Paper 5

Organizational/Societal Impacts: Artificial

Intelligence

Introduction
This paper intends to discuss the organisational or societal impacts of Artificial Intelligence
(AI). But for one to understand the impacts AI has on an organisation and society at large, it
is important to define what AI is. Artificial intelligence is defined as a system’s ability to
interpret external data correctly, to learn from such data, and to use those learnings to achieve
specific goals and tasks through flexible adaption (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2019, p. 17).
There’s often confusion around AI, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big data. To clear the
ambiguity it is imperative to look at the definition of IoT mentioned by (Krotov, 2017;
Saarikko, Westergreen, & Blomquist, 2017) whereby IoT is seen as the idea that devices
around us can use sensors and software to collect and exchange data. On the other part, Big
data included all the data collected through mobile, social media applications or the firm’s
internal database (Kaplan 2012; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).

AI makes use of the external information that would have been obtained through IoT or big
data sources as its input to identify the underlying rules and the pattern which is more reliant
on machine learning to perform such a task (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2019). It can then be said
that AI is broader than machine learning because of its ability to perceive data that might be
coming from natural language, voice and image recognition. They will be able to manipulate
those objects based on information that is learned from a robot or another connected device.

Impact of AI on Education
Analytical AI has brought about the use of Virtual teaching assistants who can answer
students' questions and tailor reactions to individual data (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2019).
Learning Management Systems (LMS) such as Brightspace provided by Desire to Learn
(D2L) provide virtual teaching assistants that send reminders, alerts, and personalised
feedback to students. Automatically release remediation or enrichment content based on
student achievement (D2L, 2020).

The use of chatbots by universities like the Technical University of Berlin and Carnegie
Mellon. Also, the British RELX Group has opted to use AI in the research space to automate
academic literature reviews and support the review process by checking plagiarism or the
misuse of statistics. A process which is difficult and takes time to process humans.
Furthermore, the use of Human-Inspired AI (AI-Based career services able to identify
emotions) to test whether students pay attention during a virtual class whereby facial
impressions are collected through a webcam (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2019).

The University of Pretoria established an Intelligent Systems Group (ISG) that specialises in
the theory and application of systems that perceive, reason, learn and act intelligently. The
unit focuses its research on the following fields; Artificial Intelligence and Machine
Learning, Bayesian Methods, Data Fusion, Digital Image Processing, Digital Signal
Processing, Computer Vision, Communication Systems, Control Systems, Embedded
Systems, Parallel Processing, Pattern Recognition, Robotics, Real-Time Systems (University
of Pretoria, 2020).

Kaplan and Haenlein (2019) stated that universities need to better prepare their students for a
workplace in which AI has become increasingly prominent. In an opinion piece that was
published in Forbes Magazine Marwala (2020) mentioned that the University of
Johannesburg (UJ) has introduced a compulsory course on AI for all students. This is the
direction that ought to be followed by all universities to ensure that they focus on the
emerging requirement of business, government and society that increasingly necessitate
knowledge of AI.

Impact of AI on Corporations
The use of analytical AI applications such as application tracking systems (ATS) in human
resource management helps with the screening of CVs as well as candidate selection (Kaplan
and Haenlein, 2019). In an article written by Dlamini (2019), it is said about 46% of South
African companies are actively piloting AI within their organisation which was extracted
from the AI Maturity Report in South Africa commissioned by Microsoft and conducted by
Ernst & Young. Medical companies such as Discovery make use of chatbots on their website
to interact with their customers. The FNB App secure chat incorporates the use of chatbots
where customers can find services without having to call or go to the bank. That is the
direction that has been taken by many companies.

Impact of AI government
Just like AI impact universities and corporations alike, the remaining question is how AI
affect the government be it directly or indirectly. Just like the deployment of analytical AI
used in the City of Jacksonville to manage intelligent streetlights (Kaplan and Haenlein,
2019). Such technology can be useful in South Africa considering the issue of electricity
shortages. In some instances, lights remain on during the day, which is a misuse of the
already scarce resource. Southern Nevada Health District makes use of the combination of AI
and Twitter to monitor restaurants where customers might have reported food poising (by
making use of natural language and geotagging) those restaurants are then identified for
inspection (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2019).

With the high level of crime in South Africa, the facial recognition system used to crack
down on criminals on jaywalking deployed by Shenzhen authorities can be very useful
(Kaplan and Haenlein, 2019). One question that always arises when consideration of the use
of AI with the government is where it begins and ends. The biggest challenge with deploying
AI in South Africa is the numerous structural and cultural hurdles combined with social
issues that may delay businesses and governments from fully integrating AI technologies into
the economy (Chen et al., 2020). The biggest challenge is the issue of job losses as a result of
AI technologies. The year 2019 and 2020 has seen several job losses in the banking sector,
the closure of a lot of branches contributing to the already high unemployment rate in South
Africa (Write, 2020). Worker's unions have been fighting to keep the working class in their
jobs when corporations venture into using AI to automate their business transactions while
maximizing profits.

The fact that the government still make use of the Z83 form for recruitment purposes, and the
use of physical delivery for job applications indicates the state of affairs in South Africa
where technology is considered let along with AI. Institutions such as SARS, Home Affairs
and the Traffic Department did pilot projects to make use of technology to manage their poor
service. If it’s not offline systems, it's the manipulation of systems for corrupt activities.

Implications of AI
The world of technology is forever changing the above discussion indicates the inevitable
part of AI technology in our lives. AI will have implications directly or indirectly, as
customers and citizens we want better and timely service delivery. That can be possible
through adopting AI but the implications come from the fear of customers having their data
shared on those platforms. The current conversation of the POPIA Act is still ongoing and
has not yet come into effect. We hope it will guide the use and the protection of data which is
at the hands of data handles.
Kaplan and Haenlein (2019) propose the three Cs of organisation implications of AI to help
the organisation better prepare for the future. The three C’s are namely Confidence, Change
and Control
Internal External
 Confidence Managers need to exude
confidence concerning their
employees in a fast-evolving
work environment
Change Employees need to
constantly change and adapt
their functions and skills
through lifelong learning
Control Employees need to
constantly change and adapt
their functions and skills
through lifelong learning
Consumers need to put
confidence in the abilities
and recommendations of an
organization’s AI systems
Competitors need to be
monitored and outperformed
permanently by the use of
better hardware or data
States need to control the
ecosystem of managers,
employees, machines,
consumers, and competitors

References

Chen, J.Y.-J., Moore, R., Seedat, Y., Schoeman, W., 2020. Artificial Intelligence is South
Africa Ready? | Accenture.
D2L, 2020. Tools teachers love [WWW Document]. D2L. URL https://www.d2l.com/en-
mea/k-12/tools-teachers-love/ (accessed 4.21.20).
Dlamini, S., 2019. SA companies actively piloting AI [WWW Document]. URL
https://www.iol.co.za/technology/sa-companies-actively-piloting-ai-25804909
(accessed 4.23.20).
Kaplan, A., Haenlein, M., 2019. Siri, Siri, in my hand: Who’s the fairest in the land? On the
interpretations, illustrations, and implications of artificial intelligence. Bus. Horiz. 62,
15–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2018.08.004
Marwala, T., 2020. News & Events - Teach Artificial intelligence to all students [WWW
Document]. URL https://www.uj.ac.za:443/newandevents/Pages/Teach-Artificial-
intelligence-to-all-students.aspx (accessed 4.23.20).
University of Pretoria, 2020. Intelligent Systems | University of Pretoria [WWW Document].
URL https://www.up.ac.za/intelligent-systems (accessed 4.23.20).
Write, S., 2020. Over 9,000 planned job cuts have been announced for South Africa in 2020 –
these are the companies affected [WWW Document]. URL
https://businesstech.co.za/news/business/372434/over-9000-planned-job-cuts-have-
been-announced-for-south-africa-in-2020-these-are-the-companies-affected/
(accessed 3.22.20).