Some see its popularization as a powerful tool to improve results and enhance talents; others see it as a threat that looms beyond the potential loss of traditional jobs. We are talking about artificial intelligence (AI), a tool that is being used exponentially in practically all industries and sectors, drastically changing the way we work and relate to each other.
According to the most recent IDB Lab publication, “Deep Tech: The New Wave,” AI could lead to a 7% increase in regional GDP and more than $100 billion in exports of knowledge-based services using AI over the next decade in Latin America and the Caribbean. Moreover, according to the Latin American AI Index, in 2022, investments of $8.2 billion were mobilized to the region (5% of the global amount), 40% concentrated in Brazil.
What this trend shows is that, although AI is still in its early-stage developments in Latin America and the Caribbean, it is becoming increasingly important in innovation ecosystems, as it will be used by a growing number of companies in our region and will be the technology on which most new dynamic ventures are based, a trend that will also be observed globally.
Harnessing the positive impact of AI
We need to harness the economic potential of AI for greater equity, access and quality in pressing issues for our region, such as citizen services, education, health, housing, financial inclusion, agricultural development and climate resilience.
To enable this positive impact of AI, it is necessary to proactively address elements that are at the core of the work of public innovation agencies and the IDB Group, such as talent development, STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) skills, technology transfer and a policy framework that enables innovation in the private sector, especially in terms of investment, early stage financing and acceleration of technology-based startups. In parallel, we must ask ourselves how to ensure that this technology is deployed safely and reliably, not only in the sense that it has sufficient and accurate data for the models to work properly, but also that its results, recommendations, and predictions are fair, transparent, reliable and leaves no one behind.
For the ethical and responsible use and development of AIThe IDB Group’s fAIr LAC initiative, born in late 2019 to promote the ethical and responsible use and development of technology, including AI, seeks, in the public sphere, to contribute to the improvement of the provision of social services, mitigating inequality and working hand in hand with national governments and relevant actors in the development of AI strategies, regulations, etc. In the private sector, it promotes the development and ethical and responsible use of AI with the actors of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, such as startups, investors, venture capital funds, incubators, accelerators, innovation agencies, experts, developers and also with those who demand these technologies in both the public and private sectors.
From IDB Lab, the IDB Group’s innovation laboratory, we work in this context to provide tools, knowledge and skills to the actors of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, especially early-stage companies that, supported by AI, are deploying models of social and/or environmental impact, to incorporate ethical AI principles in their business models and operations. By fostering ethics in the development of technologies, the innovation ecosystem in the region is strengthened, enabling sustainable growth of companies and greater competitiveness in the market.
Based on our 3S (Solution, System and Society) framework, in 2020, we initiated the co-creation of an AI ethics self-assessment tool for entrepreneurs called fAIr LAC 3S, which enables early-stage companies to understand how ethically balanced their AI systems are and improve them with an expert recommendation. We have tested and used this methodology internally at IDB Lab, integrating it into our project finance due diligence and analysis processes and through acceleration programs in the region in Mexico and Colombia.
More recently, in the context of the Ethical Algorithms project in Chile executed by Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez and Magical, we co-created a similar tool for venture capital (VC) called fAIr Venture that supports investors in their analysis and due diligence phases to identify AI risks and establish proportional measures before investing or financing this type of technology.
The new wave of generative intelligence
Since 2022, we have witnessed a new wave of AI, generative AI, which can generate multimodal content (text, video, images, audio) based on instructions or prompts. This is a new phase in the development of AI technology that has rapidly evolved from recurrent neural networks (RNNs) to long-term, short-term memory (LSTM) and today’s transformer-based architecture. This is perhaps the most relevant scientific breakthrough of the decade, not only because with this architecture, the technology is more efficient and accurate in processing sequential data applicable to routine tasks such as language translation, image generation and speech recognition, but above all, because it is widely available and its use and exploitation is no longer restricted to technology professionals.
According to a McKinsey report on the state of AI in 2023, the irruption of the generative AI business will be significant with major changes in workforces at all levels, regardless of the level of qualification and hierarchy.
From the IDB and IDB Lab, we know that ethical and responsible principles are key to applying tools and knowledge if we want to maximize the benefits of this and other emerging technologies so that their potential harmful effects can be mitigated and share the prosperity they promise to bring for all. That is why we are working to make ethical AI a starting point, not an aspiration.