A new white paper on artificial intelligence adoption in New Zealand says the main risk for companies is to think online courses are enough to train staff.
“There is an urgent need for professional education at the university level for people implementing AI at companies,” says the paper by the Artificial Intelligence Researchers Association.
Titled “Aotearoa New Zealand Artificial Intelligence: A strategic approach 2024″, the paper is an update on a 2021 white paper by the same organisation. It said a 2024 edition was necessary because of the rapid evolution of AI since 2021.
The association, which has more than 450 members from academia, industry and research organisations, including all eight universities and Crown Research Institutes (CRIs), said the main message of the white paper is that New Zealand must invest in leveraging its strong AI research base.
This would increase the competitiveness and productivity of this country in a manner which suited its needs and priorities.
“If Aotearoa New Zealand does not invest in research, AI will only be efficient software running in the cloud of large overseas companies,” said the paper authored by four professors from the universities of Waikato, Canterbury, Auckland and Victoria University of Wellington.
Establishing a strong research environment and forging industry-academia integration is one of five key dimensions the paper discusses for customising to the New Zealand context a World Economic Forum white paper on developing a national AI strategy.
It says the AI research technology landscape is unique compared with other science research sectors, with enterprises and academic research potential being equally valued.
It proposes four major goals for New Zealand: to increase the number of outstanding local AI researchers and skilled graduates; establish interconnected nodes of scientific excellence in universities, CRIs and regional research institutes; develop global thought leadership on the economic, ethical, cultural, policy and legal implications of AI advances; and to support a national research community on AI.
“Universities can play a fundamental role in educating the next generation of AI practitioners. The main risk for companies is to think that online courses from cloud computing providers are sufficient to train their employees,” the paper says.
“There is a strong need for AI graduates for our big primary industry, health (bio)medical, environmental, high-value, high-tech manufacturing (sectors) as well as social, wellbeing, economics, finance and others.
“Further the professional skills required extend beyond technical skills into domains like professional ethics, which is vitally important to realise the value of culturally responsive AI, ethical AI and data sovereignty.”
In a section on preparing the workforce for the AI economy, the paper notes primary industry is New Zealand’s most important economic sector and AI has great potential to help it make significant improvements - especially where AI/machine learning (ML) techniques are not extensively used.
It says the national priority needs to be focused on: milk and dairy industry; aquaculture and the open ocean “blue” economy; wine and viticulture; animal products; forestry; water resources; plan and horticulture; plant and animal disease diagnosis and biosecurity.
AI and ML experts collaborating with these areas of the sector and chemical domain experts could “revolutionise” the performance in primary industry, the paper says.
Other areas requiring workforce preparation are climate change and the environment; health outcomes; high-value manufacturing, social and ethical and public policies.
The paper identifies strategic areas requiring a primary investment focus as sustainable AI; ethical and explainable AI; increasing investment from government and industry; AI education in terms of competence and expertise.
The paper’s “vision” is that by 2030, this country will have a community of cutting-edge companies producing and exporting AI technologies, supported by a strong network of researchers involved in high-level fundamental and applied research.
It makes recommendations to establish New Zealand as an exemplar of excellence and trust in AI globally.
The paper invites stakeholders from all sectors to engage on its findings and proposals.
Andrea Fox joined the Herald as a senior business journalist in 2018 and specialises in writing about the dairy industry, agribusiness, exporting and the logistics sector and supply chains.