The 2024 GW Business & Policy Forum, a high-profile gathering to examine the future with artificial intelligence (AI), kicked off with a panel discussion on the global impact of AI, leveraging the deep expertise of the School of Business in the arena of international business and development.
In leading the “AI in the Global Frontier” panel that opened the daylong forum, GW School of Business Professor of Practice of International Business Danny Leipziger focused the discussion on the international dynamics of AI advances, including its potential impact on lower-income countries and job displacement.
A former vice president of the World Bank, Leipziger had led the bank’s Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network, and he serves as managing director of The Growth Dialogue, a network that promotes sustainable economic growth.
The three panelists—Unisys Chief Technology Officer Dwayne Allen, MBA ’96; Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy; and Tiffany Moore, the senior vice president of political and industry affairs at the Consumer Technology Association—concurred that AI is irretrievably embedded in the business landscape. They said business and governments must now identify safeguards that ensure AI does not widen the gap between developed and emerging markets.
“If you think about AI, it’s really not new. [The term] artificial intelligence was first coined almost 60 years ago,” said Allen, adding that it is the rapid growth of generative AI over the last 18 months that is fueling new interest. “It presents a tremendous opportunity. There’s a lot of hype, there’s a lot of fear.”
Allen said Unisys is looking at “client solutions and new client opportunities” at the same time it studies how AI can be used internally at the company, including in marketing and human resources.
“You don’t have credibility if you use it for clients but not for yourself,” he said, adding that Unisys has conducted AI training within the company. “Then there is the element of using it in an ethical manner. That’s the comprehensive approach at Unisys with clients we’re trying to help, not just selling them things,” he said.
The Consumer Technology Association represents 1,300 companies—including the automotive industry and other large manufacturers such as John Deere—and Moore said AI will eventually be a component of all of them. “The question is how it is being used. Is it externally facing or internally facing?” she said.
Moore said work is underway to develop standards in AI to ensure there is a collective understanding of what it can do and the terminology to describe it.
“There are so many ways that companies will be using AI. It’s about how do we create those guardrails to make sure AI is used at its highest profile. And how do we work with government,” she explained.
During the panel discussion, Leipziger raised the issue of how to develop global guardrails and regulations when influential regions—such as the United States and the European Union—view AI from different perspectives.
“The U.S. is more concerned with innovating, and the EU is more concerned about regulating,” he noted.
Moore characterized AI as a competitiveness issue that requires every country to evaluate it for the best results it can produce, adding that smaller businesses need assurances that also enable them to participate in the AI revolution. “If we are too restrictive, we cut ourselves out of global standards,” she said.
Later in the conversation, she said: “From a U.S. perspective, it’s important for Congress to pass laws that allow AI to flourish [to generate] greater efficiency for the private sector and for government.”
Krishnamurthy at Flipkart, an ecommerce marketplace in India, said AI plays a pivotal role in his company’s platform and its ability to move products into the supply chain. Nonetheless, he pointed out that technology as basic as internet access remains out of reach for billions of people around the world. He called on business and government to look at AI through a lens of inclusion.
“When we develop technology, it’s pretty homogenous. How do we make technology more diverse? There is a need to democratize technology,” Krishnamurthy said.
He added that AI is not a single product but an evolution of a technology, which makes regulation “deeply challenging.”
Leipziger raised an issue that has fueled pushback against AI: the idea that it will replace workers. He said new technology has always been accompanied by a transition period in which some countries do better than others.
“South Korea’s youth unemployment is 20 percent. Are we being a little optimistic on the [job] displacement side?’ he asked. He also noted that despite the clamor for regulation, “in global work it is very hard to get agreement. So why should we be so optimistic … when regulation is far lagging the advances in AI?
Leipziger said worker upskilling and reskilling will be crucial. Moore agreed, while Allen said job displacement will occur, “but I just don’t think you should put it all on AI.” He added that AI might even redefine what work is.
In looking at AI’s impact on jobs, Moore talked about her family’s connection to work in the steel mills and auto industry, where increased productivity meant fewer workers.
“It’s not about optimism and pessimism, it’s about being pragmatic. It is about making sure we are ahead of the game,” she explained. “I don’t think we have a choice to decide if AI is going to take hold. It is already grabbing. We need to make sure governments and companies are investing in AI. AI can make work much safer for employees.”
Krishnamurthy said it important to remember that workers are also consumers. “I would not look at a particular process and say jobs are going away… We need to look at progress overall [thanks to AI] and the creation of jobs.” He also cautioned that AI needed to be integrated throughout a company, not seen as a separate component.
Leipziger said he was pleased to moderate the panel since AI holds tremendous promise to raise productivity, which has been lagging globally in recent decades. “That said,” he added, “the global community needs to come together to harness AI while protecting the public—and this is a great challenge.”