Labour MP Ray Abela has challenged Opposition leader Alex Borg to spell out how robots and artificial intelligence would compensate for a smaller population, arguing that his proposal is a slogan rather than a plan.
Abela said naming AI is not the same as understanding it. Seriousness shows he argued, when someone explains where the technology can take over certain tasks, where it helps workers and where people remain indispensable.
Abela, who says he speaks regularly about AI, technology and productivity, took issue with the way Borg has framed robots and AI as an answer to population decline. In his remarks, Borg spoke of businesses that cannot find enough workers, called for a smaller population, yet also said he would keep bringing in foreign workers, before proposing that machines and AI take the place of workers.
The MP put a set of questions to him: how the proposals fit together, in which sectors, over what timeframe, and with what investment. Anyone aspiring to lead the country he said, should be able to answer them.
He drew a line between automating a task and replacing a worker. A job can involve many tasks, some repetitive, others requiring judgement, responsibility and human relationships. Automating part of the work he said, does not mean the person doing it can be removed.
In industry and manufacturing, Abela accepted that robots can take over repetitive processes, lift output and reduce the need for certain roles. Even there he said, success depends on investment, training, maintenance and people with different skills. In health, elderly care and education, the same formula cannot be applied blindly. AI can help a doctor analyse information, cut a nurse’s administrative load and help a teacher prepare material but it does not remove the need for doctors, nurses, carers and teachers. Caring for a patient, assisting an elderly person and educating a child he wrote, involve far more than a process you can program; they require presence, empathy, judgement and professional responsibility.
Abela said the link Borg draws between more robots and a smaller population is too simplistic, since higher productivity can reduce the need for some work but can also lead to more economic activity and demand for new skills. He has long argued that Malta must create more value through technology and skills and that growth cannot always rest on adding to the number of workers.
Borg he said, should explain which processes he wants to automate, how he will help businesses invest, how workers will be trained and how the result will be measured. That, Abela wrote, is where the difference shows between someone who uses AI as a nice word in a speech and someone who understands what it takes to put it to work.
