Page 14 - DPSA_SDR Vol 12 No.2 2019

SERVICE DELIVERY TECHNOLOGY

Re-tooling for the

fourth industrial

revolution

Artificial intelligence (IA) guru, Professor Tshilidzi Marwala, advices
professionals to reskill in anticipation of the technology-induced
redundancies, writes Amukelani Chauke

As the digital age transforms or mobility.
the way in which people live, “At OR Tambo, not too long ago, they
it will also have an impact on used to have a machine to give people
massages. You would sit on the chair
the economy and on jobs. New and there would be things that would be
trades with new skills will be moving for you to get a massage. Those
created and some jobs that are chairs are no longer there and the reason
currently done by humans will for that is that human beings do those
things much better than a machine.
be replaced by automated sys- So jobs that have what is called the
tems. In a nutshell, only those human touch are jobs that are going to
those skills that still require survive the fourth industrial revolution,”
a human touch and complex explained Professor Marwala.
problem-solving abilities will
survive. Marwala’s research in
artificial intelligence
This is according to Professor
Tshilidzi Marwala, the vice-chancellor In his current position since January
and principal of the University of 2018, Professor Marwala had previously
Johannesburg, who was one of the been the deputy vice-chancellor for
keynote speakers at the 2018 Science Research and Internationalisation
Forum South Africa, which took place between 2013 and 2017. He holds a
at the tail-end of 2018. In his address, Bachelor of Science in Mechanical
Professor Marwala contemplated some Engineering (magna cum laude) from
of the critical skills needed in the fourth Case Western Reserve University (USA),
industrial revolution. “I am going to talk a Master of Mechanical Engineering
about something called the Moravec’s from the University of Pretoria and a
dilemma. Moravec basically believed PhD specialising in Artificial Intelligence
that [the] skills that human beings and Engineering from the University of
acquired a long time ago are much Cambridge. He was a post-doctoral
more difficult to automate than skills that research associate at the Imperial
were acquired more recently,” said the College (then University of London).
professor. Professor Marwala’s research interests
are multi-disciplinary and include the
The Moravec paradox is a principle theory and application of artificial
that was articulated by futurist Hans intelligence to engineering, computer
Moravec and other artificial intelligence science, finance, social science and
and robotics researchers in the 1980s. It medicine. He has published 12 books
states that contrary to other assertions, it on artificial intelligence – one of which
is easy to give robots or computers adult has been translated into Chinese; over
level performance on intelligence tests 300 papers in journals, proceedings,
while at the same time it is a bit more book chapters and magazines; and
difficult to give them skills like sensibility holds four international patents.

12 SERVICE DELIVERY REVIEW | Volume 12 No.2 of 2019