An internationally renowned economist has warned of a 'significant bubble' in the area of artificial intelligence (AI), and said that it could burst at any time in the near future.
“The rapid expansion of the AI industry is great, but at the same time there can be some repercussions to come as there is a huge bubble in the AI sector,” Prof Ha-Joon Chang, a Board Member of Qatar Foundation, said.
Prof Chang was speaking to 'Gulf Times' on the sidelines of a talk at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, where he discussed the need for industrial diversification, especially for small countries like Qatar. Prof Chang is the author of 17 internationally recognised books as well as numerous articles in a number of journals and other publications. He is a research professor at the Department of Economics of SOAS University of London and co-director of the Centre for Sustainable Structural Transformation.
“Just like the Dotcom Bubble in the early 2000s, there is a huge bubble in the AI sector. So the question is, when is it going to burst? But there is one. I am afraid that a lot of people will get hurt and a lot of these AI data centres might have to be shut down. So it is not a pretty picture, but it is coming. I don't know when, I don't know how serious, but it is coming,” cautioned Prof Chang.
Prof Chang’s latest book is 'Edible Economics', and his writings have been translated and published in 45 languages and in 46 countries. Worldwide, his books have sold around 2.5mn copies. According to the economist, the path of technological progress and how individuals and companies deal with them are very complex. “I think initially a lot of those services, tradeable services in which some countries had considerable success, like software coding and reading medical scans, are going to be replaced by AI. But they might find that some of it actually cannot be really done well by AI. Then if they need humans to do more difficult things, probably they might go back to the same countries and those countries need to be ready for the next phase,” he explained.
As for claims that AI could be very detrimental to the human race, Prof Chang said that such potential dangers are contained in many technologies, and AI also might have some potential threats. “Fossil-fuel technologies and nuclear energy are examples of technologies with potentially damaging consequences. Nuclear energy has the potential to destroy the world. So I don't know whether AI is unique in that. I mean, I think a lot of that talk is basically the AI industry wanting to draw attention to them so that they can raise more money,” he pointed out.
Chang also discussed the implications of artificial intelligence for Qatar and other economies, particularly the future of internationally traded services. “It is never straightforward. There's never complete displacement. Demand could eventually grow for people capable of handling more complex tasks that AI cannot perform effectively," he added.
