South Africans are embracing AI, but still seek training

More than 60% of South African workers are regular users of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, according to a survey by management consulting firm Oliver Wyman. Forty-one percent of respondents said they use them once a week and 21% use them daily.

Comparatively, only 41% of workers in France, 44% in the UK and 46% in the US claimed to be frequent users. South Africa still trails other tech-forward countries such as India (83%) and Singapore (64%).

Generative AI consists of two components: natural language processing (NLP) and content generation. NLP enables AI bots to have elaborate conversations with humans. Whereas digital agents such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa can handle basic commands, NLP-based AI bots comprehend detailed statements and can understand follow-up questions.

Generative AI has proven to be one of the fastest-adopted technologies ever. OpenAI’s ChatGPT gained 1 million users within five days of its 2022 launch and reached 100 million users in two months.

Projections suggest the generative AI market could contribute up to $20-trillion to global GDP by 2030 and save 30 billion work hours annually, according to a recently released report by Oliver Wyman.

The report also revealed that 96% of the roughly 25,000 workers surveyed believe that generative AI could enhance their job performance, a sizeable percentage of them in South Africa.

There’s a clear demand among South African workers for AI skills development. Nearly 85% of respondents expressed a desire for AI training, and 78% said they are receiving some form of training. Unfortunately, 57% found their training inadequate.

Younger generations, such as Gen Z and millennials, are more proactive in seeking out sources to acquire these skills compared with their Gen X and boomer counterparts.

However, Prejlin Naidoo, partner for media, communications and technology at Oliver Wyman, warns that even as employers launch training programmes, they must be attuned to the risks posed by enabling the greater use of generative AI.

“Allowing access to external technology systems from company computers creates cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Employers also need to put guardrails in place to ensure that generative AI-produced materials are accurate and that they account for biases that have been embedded in some datasets over time. They also need to ensure that the use of generative AI doesn’t violate copyright or trademark laws,” Naidoo says.

And he’s not alone in this line of thought. Speaking at a Wall Street Journal event, Justin Grad, director and associate general counsel for Amazon Web Services, recommended that businesses start by developing a set of tenets that guides decision-making in every element of the application of AI.

“Generative AI is a very useful tool for criminals,” says Gerhard Swart, chief technology officer at cybersecurity company Performanta. “It helps them amplify tactics like phishing scams and social engineering, impersonating real people in ways that can be hard to detect if you’re not vigilant.”

Swart points out that companies with 1,000 or more employees juggle at least 70 security products from multiple vendors. Nearly half of all security alerts go undetected because of this excess of systems.

“Investigating security alerts is very time-consuming, and the average security professional only handles about 10 per day.

“However, generative AI is significantly easing that burden. What used to take hours of human effort can now happen in minutes, even seconds.” DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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