When it comes to the ability to generate, arrange and analyze content, generative artificial intelligence is a game changer, which has the potential to change society and economy.
As an open technology-it doesn’t only exist in remote laboratories or technical communities in Silicon Valley-generative artificial intelligence lowers the threshold for participation. In the era of generative artificial intelligence, anyone can be a creator. But it also needs a thorough labor transfer, changing the production process in the economy, and then changing the types of tasks undertaken and the skills needed for success.
(Source: AI generation)
Not long ago, Microsoft entrusted Access Partnership, a global technology consulting company, with the Analytics Association of the Philippines, FICCI, The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry cooperates with local partners in many countries, such as GLOCOM (Center for Global Communications), to conduct national-level research on the potential economic impact of generative artificial intelligence in Asia.
The study estimates that productivity in India, Japan and the Philippines alone may increase by $621 billion, $1.1 trillion and $79.3 billion, and studies in Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea are under way. The research results of these countries are consistent with other global studies. For example, a recent report by McKinsey estimated that generative artificial intelligence could add $4.4 trillion to the global economy every year.
The potential economic growth is so great because generative artificial intelligence has an impact on most types of work: its impact can be considered as comparable to that of digitalization, not limited to the impact of specific products. In particular, this huge productivity improvement will come from three channels-the potential of generative artificial intelligence to release creativity, accelerate discovery and improve efficiency.
Although we can’t predict the future, generative artificial intelligence is likely to act as a "copilot" and enhance people’s ability to perform their duties, thus leading the evolution of role tasks, rather than completely eliminating work. For example, the research project of Access Partnership shows that 45% of workers in India may use generative artificial intelligence in 20% of routine work activities.
So, what is the potential impact on industry, employment and skills?
Unleash creativity
You can think of it as a digital update of the Renaissance. Given that generative artificial intelligence can provide various forms of output-text, images, video, audio, computer code and synthetic data-Asia is likely to see the explosive growth of new content. Ahmed Mazhari, president of Microsoft Asia, said: "Although innovation will continue to require the spark of human wisdom, generative artificial intelligence can play a role in supporting the innovation process."
By learning from a large amount of input data, generative artificial intelligence can help create new content, or just reduce the time and cost required for conceptualization. This technology is likely to open up new possibilities and use cases in the fields of news, academics, creative arts, marketing and product design, from journalists seeking to quickly collect story ideas to brand strategists looking for brainstorming concepts, and then to researchers who want to obtain manuscripts and modify and customize them on this basis.
Artificial intelligence has been widely used in many industries. For example, Coca-Cola has announced the use of generative artificial intelligence to create personalized advertising copy on a large scale, while Deloitte has found that the code development speed has increased by 20%.
Generative artificial intelligence will also accelerate the odd-job economy and individual entrepreneurship. For example, in India, the number of individual creators has been on the rise. A survey of more than 1,600 freelancers found that 47% people often use generative artificial intelligence tools, and more than 50% people said it had a positive impact on their productivity.
At the same time, as the Philippines strives to become a leading creative economy in Asia by 2030, generative artificial intelligence can play a key role in professionalizing the work of freelancers in the country.
Accelerate discovery
The second way that generative artificial intelligence can have a significant economic impact is to accelerate the process of scientific and educational discovery. This may include reducing research costs. For example, the query ability of this technology on a large number of data sets can help to develop and test hypotheses faster and more economically. This can also shorten the time needed to design new drugs from several years to several weeks.
According to the analysis of Access Partnership, the tasks of biochemists, biophysicists, astronomers, biologists, bioinformaticians and computer and information research scientists may be changed by generative artificial intelligence.
Another economic benefit is the role of generative artificial intelligence in improving educational achievements. For example, the Japanese government recently announced plans to allow students from primary school to high school to use generative artificial intelligence in a limited way to promote classroom discussions and artistic activities. In 2022, India launched the AIoT project to upgrade the curriculum of 50 schools.
This technology can also simplify lesson preparation and curriculum planning, so that teachers can create personalized learning experience according to the algorithm analysis of students’ learning patterns and preferences.
According to Access Partnership, the application of this kind of generative artificial intelligence will lead teachers in the fields of biological science, nursing, physics, geography, architecture and computer science to rearrange the priorities of teaching activities.
In Asia, the business process outsourcing industry, which is vital to many economies, is facing a great opportunity to seize the potential efficiency improvement first.
From automated workflow to real-time multilingual customer support, Mazari believes that "the possibility of using generative artificial intelligence may become an important competitive advantage in view of the possible intensification of competition in global market share." For example, he suggested that in the Philippines, the medical industry can re-focus on professional fields such as medical record preparation, as well as knowledge-based processes such as software development and market research.
What’s next?
Although generative artificial intelligence has brought opportunities to all Asian economies, this transformation must also be treated with caution. Pioneers can play a key role in formulating policies and regulations and encouraging innovation, investment and responsible use of the environment.
Accountability must become a core principle to ensure that machines are always effectively supervised by people. Therefore, with the growth of generative artificial intelligence, more organizations will need staff to supervise the reliable, fair and ethical use of this technology. Mazari explained: "Technology still needs human judgment to explain the potential algorithm deviation and the interaction between people to manage important stakeholder relationships."
Throughout history, technological progress will bring new employment opportunities and long-term economic growth, including the development of unimaginable roles today. Throughout Asia, the primary goal should be to ensure that these opportunities are fairly distributed, while increasing investment to ensure that the workforce is fully prepared.
In order to flourish in the world of generative artificial intelligence, people will have to apply this technology in a series of situations and tasks. In India and the Philippines, important initiatives are being carried out to improve the digital literacy of the whole people.
However, the cooperative method of government, industry and educational institutions is very important. Mazari said: "Today, there are skills training programs all over Asia, but because of race, gender, geographical location or other obstacles, too many people can’t get services at all." 61% students in ASEAN countries have not received any digital literacy education at school. This means that action must be taken quickly now to ensure that this technology will have an economic impact in the future.
Support: Ren