The cover story of last week’s The Economist titled ‘How to plan for a jobs apocalypse’ discussed job losses which may result from artificial intelligence (AI).
The illustration on the cover shows a dumpster filled with office furniture, fair warning for certain positions which are threatened by AI: cushy desk jobs that take days to do what AI can do in minutes. The article concludes: “The jobs apocalypse is not yet here. But if governments wait for conclusive evidence before creating a safety net, it will be too late. Better to start now.”
Public relations (PR) executive Vaughn Gray attended the presentation of findings from Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES) at The University of the West Indies on its Public Artificial Intelligence Readiness Study last Tuesday and reported: “The event was chaired by Professor Lloyd Waller, director of SALISES, with findings presented by Dr Stephen Johnson, research fellow.
“The occasion was described by organisers as the most significant nationally focused study on technology and society conducted in Jamaica in the past decade…it surveyed 1,072 Jamaican adults aged 18 years and older, spanning all 14 parishes and including urban, rural, suburban, and diverse socio-economic communities. Data was collected between October and December 2025.”
He continued: “The study’s central message is clear: The Jamaican public has not rejected artificial intelligence. Public support is conditional. Jamaicans are willing to embrace AI’s productive and social benefits, but they are demanding governance, literacy, equitable access, and transparency. The findings situate Jamaica at a critical inflection point, with the next five years identified as the decisive window for determining whether AI integration serves broad developmental goals or deepens existing inequalities.”
Gray, who is a member of our PROComm team, has embraced AI, keeping abreast of new applications. AI comes in handy for him to enhance presentations, give appropriate voices to speechwriting, and speed up research. Our younger team members can sometimes be heard arguing which suits them better: ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude.
This is in keeping with the study which found that, “Higher AI readiness is concentrated among younger, higher-income, tertiary-educated, and digitally connected Jamaicans. There are lower readiness clusters among low-income groups, older adults, retirees, and those with lower levels of formal education. Key barriers include device and Internet affordability, lack of formal AI training, low risk literacy, and uneven digital infrastructure. Without corrective policy action, the AI divide is likely to deepen pre-existing digital inequalities.”
I remember futurist Edie Weiner’s warning that our children should learn hands-on jobs if they want career security in the future. With HEART/NSTA Trust offering no-fee training in so many of these areas, we should encourage our young people to take up these opportunities.
Tourism and AI
Jamaica is blessed with an outstanding tourism product which depends heavily on our cheerful Jamaican personalities in all sectors of the industry. AI will ramp up training and connectivity with our markets. Already we have done away with paper for travellers and are now using digital identification systems. AI can create videos of the complete Jamaican experience to attract more adventurous travellers: It can have them running with our athletes and singing with our stars for lasting family keepsakes. Acting now will move us above and beyond our competitors. As our hotels gear up to reopen for the winter season, this would be a good time to engage their teams in AI training, opening new horizons for continuous learning offered by AI applications.
Our craft workers should not be left behind. How about a Shopify site on which they can post their products and have them ready for collection at cruise ship stops? Restaurants and cook shops can benefit also. When we met relatives at the Trelawny port, it would have been great to have preordered our meal at the restaurant so we wouldn’t have had such a long wait. We were happy to see that our beloved “Pudd’n Man” at Priory in St Ann is now on Google Maps.
Nuclear treatment for cancer
Jamaican Canadian Michael Lee-Chin has been investing in nuclear treatment of cancer. He is the major donor and namesake of the Michael Lee-Chin & Family Patient Tower at Joseph Brant Hospital in Ontario.
Lee-Chin, during an interview on the popular Brian Mulroney podcast about his interest in this novel approach, said: “We have this talk about the current state of how cancer is treated in the world today…There’re three modalities, basically. The first is surgery, the second is external beam radiation, and the third is chemotherapy, until this point. But there is a fourth modality, and the fourth modality works like this: Cancerous cells, each type of cancer, the cells have a unique receptor on them…Once we find the peptide, we can attach a radioisotope to the polypeptide or protein, which takes the radioisotope to the receptor on the cancer cells. We think it can either be seen — it lights up on a PET scan — or, with a different type of isotope, we can zap that particular type of cell, and that particular type of cell only, leaving neighbouring healthy cells alone. Side effects: very minimal.”
He noted, “…[T]his whole area, because it’s a robust platform, we now have many companies throughout the world researching and going through different phases of getting approved by the FDA, primarily. So, over time, in the next 10 years, 15 years, most cancers will be treated by this modality using different types of radioisotopes.”
Asked about his investment in nuclear treatment and nuclear energy, he shared a business gem: “If you think of any and every successful organization, business, or person — they intuitively behave in the following way, what we call the three Ps: They predict, they plan, and they persevere, the three Ps. Any and every successful person, that’s what they do, maybe intuitively. I’m just codifying what is intuition. So why would I be fascinated and, at the same time, put so many resources into these two areas? It’s because they are the way of the future.”
CAPRI on education
Thanks to research from the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI) on the obstacles in the adoption system in Jamaica, Education Minister Senator Dana Morris Dixon has announced that the Government will be exploring ways to speed up the system, which currently leaves eligible children languishing in State care.
Now, in its most recent report presented by lead researcher Dr Diana Thorburn and commissioned by UNICEF Jamaica, we are learning that despite outspending most Caribbean and Latin American countries by allocating five per cent of our gross domestic product to education, we are not seeing a satisfactory outcome in the performance of our students. I was shocked to learn from another source that Jamaica spends $6 billion per year on leave payments for teachers.
“Pre-primary education remains underfunded despite its foundational importance, while public subsidies at the tertiary level largely benefit higher-income households,” notes the summary. “Most spending goes to staff compensation, leaving limited room for infrastructure investment, even as urban schools face overcrowding. The current funding model is inefficient, tends to reinforce disparities between schools, and needs reformation,” the report stated.
Jean Lowrie-Chin is an author and executive chair of PROComm, PRODEV, and CCRP. Send comments to lowriechin@a
im.com.
Michael Lee-Chin & Family Patient Tower at Joseph Brant Hospital in Ontario, Canada