(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Joel Johnson |The Peninsula
Doha, Qatar: The upcoming Qatar Economic Forum, which is scheduled to take place from May 14-16, 2024, will highlight sought-after technologies such as Industry 5.0 and artificial intelligence (AI), that drive the economies.
Speaking ahead of the forum, Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP) President, Dr Jack Lau, told The Peninsula in an exclusive interview that“It's almost a guarantee that the shift toward 5.0 will increase productivity. Consider the analogy of customer service to understand how new technologies enable us to achieve much more than we previously did. With the development of advanced AI-driven computer systems, for instance, a customer service representative no longer has to take one phone call at a time. They can set up the systems to attend several calls, so the representative's role then evolves more into that of a supervisor.”
However, the representative would only jump in when customers have problems that the computers cannot solve.
The senior official also noted the positives, the most significant would be the lesser reliance on hard labor with the increase in automation, such as robots in industries like construction, agriculture, automotive, and even hospitality.
QSTP, a member of the Qatar Foundation is also working with robotic vehicles for industrial parts, including operations that are labor-intensive with a risk of human accidents. However, in a controlled environment with cutting-edge technologies, safety and efficiency in this area are optimised.
Dr. Lau will be addressing issues on investment and job opportunities in Industry 5.0, AI, and the Internet of Things (IoT) during the forum.
In terms of challenges facing the sector, he said“Similar to the overconsumption of anything, I think we tend to become too reliant on technology, to the extent that we begin to doubt our own judgment. This overdependence on technology coupled with not having the right understanding of how to use technology is what I would call challenges in the way to really unlocking the true potential of human-machine co-existence.”
QSTP President highlighted that one of the most pressing realisations is that there are a lot of existing tasks that could have been done by technologies either partially or completely better than human beings. The challenge, primarily, is to use this understanding to determine ways in which we can best leverage these advances to reap the most benefits for society and business.
“Industry 5.0 will broaden our emphasis on employee well-being, using technology to elevate the human experience, while supporting our ambitions around building resilience in the workplace and promoting sustainability,” he said.
Dr. Lau emphasised that Industry 5.0 will create more jobs.
However, there have been several era-defining technological advances in the past, making jobs redundant but, at the same time, opening doors to new ones.
“The reality is that there will always be roles that human beings are needed for. We may have construction robots handling the hard work onsite, but that will not diminish the need for a human expert to monitor the work being delivered,” he explained.
Another way to look at this is through the deployment of chatbots.
Earlier, a helpline number was required to call and wait for the turn to be answered for some of the most basic details and concerns.
However, today, chatbots on websites have been designed to provide instant information.
On the other hand, when encountering technology-enabled obstacles, the immediate response is to speak to someone in charge, and therefore, individuals would need humans to intervene.
“I think as human expectations are bound to rise, there will be many tasks that will be required that even the latest technology will not be able to satisfy,” Dr. Lau added.
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