We can seize the opportunity to shape an AI-driven future.
The only job I would do for free today is for the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).
This does not mean that I agree with KRA and their brutal methods, I don’t. First, it is because even with my schoolboy economics, I understand the importance of funding the party; tax is what pays for everything.
The bullets, the medicines, the teachers, the expensive jets. Everything. Without taxes, we go back to a state of nature. That is the supply side.
Let me explain the consumer side this way. I was working on a presentation to a colleague here in Nairobi and another in London for a sandwich product for senior African executives and the principal question was: who and what does an executive on this continent need to know to be taken seriously, basically to project influence and competence?
So, I turned the question around a little and asked myself: What do I need to know to prosper and have a bit of fun around this place?
Like most people who have been employees for long periods, I am basically a pet, I don’t have life skills. There was always someone in IT and HR and Finance to do things for me.
I have a hard time buying software, I am not even numerate, as a matter of fact the state of my knowledge is such that I should not be involved in any economic activity at all.
Folks should seriously consider washing me, applying a lot of oil on me, brushing my grey hair and putting on display as some kind of zoo exhibit, that’s perhaps the only career the state of my knowledge allows.
American billionaires, who I am have been reading up on with fascination, spend a lot of time reading.
Actually, they seem to spend more time accumulating knowledge than making money. We, on the other hand, appear to wallow in ignorance about what we really need to know in order to survive. For example, for the average person and company, their biggest risk is KRA.
The complicated tax regime and very tough enforcement requires very sophisticated compliance mechanisms.
If you have been following the developments in AI, you know that things will begin galloping south, especially for employees, in about 18 months.
Replacements, job losses, big shifts and changes. Other than catching feelings, there is nothing humans can do that machines will not be able to do better. Machines can create, or assist in the creative process. The invention of the camera boosted the visual arts.
Machines write, assist in writing, storage, retrieval and distribution of written material.
In due course, a time will come when human beings will not be able to assist AI systems with anything, especially because of recursive self-improvement where they not only improve themselves, but they also improve their capacity to improve themselves. Inevitably, they will replace us in the work place and in most other places. So, what will humanity do with the excess population?
I did not know that there were so many consultants until I tried my hand at it. Many of them are AI ‘experts’, which is good because there is need for emphasis in that direction. Every industry leader needs to have a good grasp of the changes in technology, how those changes will affect their industry, what they need to do to ride the wave and survive it. And they need expert level knowledge, not just a rough idea.
As soon as I have sufficient capital, I’ll bet the farm on technology and energy stock. AI will need chips and a hell of lot of electricity. In the meantime, I’m putting all my cards on the humble latte. The Chinese and Indians are deserting green and masala teas, their palate is leaning towards coffee.
At the same, changes in climate are reducing areas that are able to support coffee. Growing demand times falling supply equals good prices.
The biggest risk in Kenyan agriculture is political irrational intervention. Macadamia was a good, viable crop, even with competition from South Africa for the Asian market.
When the government announced a ban on exports, allegedly to encourage local processing, farmers went under the bus.
Coffee, the Rift Valley’s favourite new crop, is not too heavily regulated: plantations can grow and process their own crop, without having to rely on a succession of coffee society officials endlessly clearing their throats and steaming off the profits in village freak-offs.
I have run out of space but the point is this: knowledge, lots of it, and systems of sharing it, is now a factor of production. Village freak-offs, ain’t.
