The Vice-Chancellor & Principal Prof Tshilidzi Marwala at the University of Johannesburg (UJ), hosted a gathering of his book club on Wednesday, 13 February 2019 and delved into AI’s present-day capabilities and predictions about the impact of technology power that both the US and China have been racking up.

This urgent and necessary book gives us an insider view of the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, the duopoly of US and China in AI, the inevitable automation of routine jobs, and a blueprint of co-existence between humans and AI.

“I learned that AI holds the potential for some of the biggest advances we are going to see. It’s about transformation and as human beings we have to look at changing the way we live and do things”, said Prof Kelvin Bwalya, Vice Dean: Research at the Johannesburg Business School (JBS).

“One of my professional goals this year is to learn more about artificial intelligence (AI). Over the course of the past year, there have been a lot of stories coming out about how schools are adding the concept of AI into their curriculum and so I wanted to better understand its capabilities and how it might impact the future of learning and the future of work,” said Latoya Njokwe, Masters student in the Faculty of Education.

Prof Marwala concluded his discourse with a largely optimistic sentiment. “Although AI will drastically change society as we know it, eliminating jobs and changing humanity’s conception of work, he argued that creativity is needed. “We need the ability to ask questions,” he said. Prof Marwala also added that from an economics point of view, Data is going to determine who will dominate the space in this Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR).

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