Like other game-changing technologies before it, artificial intelligence is expected to unleash new wealth creation, resource reallocation and societal change. But the precise forms that this will take – and at what speed – is difficult to predict. Richard Mylles, the author of a new UBS Sustainability and Impact Institute report on the theme, joins us to explain how AI’s consequences for human capital can be optimised, focusing on education, productivity and health. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hello and welcome to the Bulletin with UBS on Monocle Radio.
Each week the sharpest minds and freshest thinkers in finance take you beyond the numbers and hype right to the heart of the big issues of the day.
This week we're unpacking a new thought leadership piece from the CSO in the UBS Sustainability and Impact Institute exploring how AI can improve life outcomes around the world.
Now you'll likely recall that the Sustainability and Impact Institute was founded in 2021 to contribute to the sustainability debate with a focus on actionable and timely contributions.
The Institute's a collaborative effort with Experts from across UBS's business divisions.
Members strive to encourage objective and fact based debate, provide new impulses for action, and identify innovations that will help shape our collective efforts and awareness about sustainability and impact.
We're fortunate to once again be joined by one of the members today, Richard Miles, ESG Analyst at the Institute, who's the author of this compelling piece of research into AI.
It's a pleasure to welcome him back to the show.
Richard, Great to speak with you again.
Let's start by talking a bit about the CSO remit and this report particularly.
This is about taking a longer view and I think what's really interesting in tackling the AI sort of topic is to look at the societal impacts, look at the prism of the opportunities and I suppose the risks also for human capital and to sort of approach this hot topic from that direction.
It's not counterintuitive per se, but it's really interesting.
It's slightly different.
Tell me about how you kind of originated the idea of taking this perspective to look at AI at this time.
Richard.
Sure.
Yeah.
So I guess the way that we look at human development in this report is as a sort of story of technology.
So people often talk about general purpose technologies, things like electrification, the Internet and now AI being the latest one of those general purpose technologies.
So these are technologies that have broad application.