Government Senator in the Office of the Prime Minister with direct oversight for skills and digital transformation, Dr Dana Morris Dixon, says preliminary steps are being taken to select the members of the recently announced Artificial Intelligence (AI) committee who are set to be announced in the coming weeks.

Morris Dixon, who was responding to questions during a post-Cabinet press briefing on Wednesday, July 19, said that seasoned professionals in the information technology (IT) industry, both locally and internationally, have expressed interest in becoming a part of the AI task force.

“Now, I don’t want to talk about membership until it’s finally through Cabinet, but we do have very senior people in the IT industry in Jamaica and also in the diaspora that have expressed an interest in being a part of the task force and we have been vetting those individuals. Once we get it through Cabinet and all the names are approved, we will come with the entire arrange of the membership of that task force, and that should be done within the next two weeks,” she outlined.

Senator Morris Dixon also noted that with growing concerns surrounding job displacements with the integration of AI in society, the AI task force will be mandated to conduct research into the regulation of generative AI to determine the opportunities and risks of its use.

“The AI task force is really critical, especially given where we are and especially in terms of the possible displacement that can take place in some of our sectors. One key sector is the BPO [Business Process Outsourcing] sector, which we do have some concern with, in relation to those who may be at the bottom of that sector, especially customer service agents, because we know that with AI, there is that technology, its already been in place for many years and it is expanding significantly. And so, we do have some concerns about displacements there and its important that we do re-skilling,”

SENATOR DANA MORRIS DIXON