MANY Filipinos who oppose Pax Silica think that they don’t need Artificial Intelligence (AI). The usual line is that they have lived without AI before, and that data centers will raise their utility bills. This is a short-sighted point of view, because AI will become part of the utility bills.
Some compare data centers to factories, but that is actually an incomplete analogy. Data centers can be thought of as factories, but it’s better to think of AI as infrastructure.
Ultimately, that is what Pax Silica involves: Being part of the American AI infrastructure and supply chain.
The only alternative to this is the Chinese AI supply chain, because we are incapable of building our own, and anyone who says otherwise is speaking nonsense.
Think of roads, water pipes, sanitation, waste disposal, transportation, communication; artificial intelligence will soon be added to that list, and the reason is that all those other services will be connected to AI systems. This will be done for increased efficiency, productivity and lower cost.
AI will also be integrated into everyday life because it compresses operations and reduces expenses. This is not up for debate. The older models can already create websites, drafts, videos and codes. The new ones are going to render a lot of (but not all) office jobs obsolete.
So here are the important questions: Why should business owners and entrepreneurs pay for a workforce when they can reduce costs by getting a team of AI Agents?
Why should consumers pay for human services that they can get cheaper from another set of AI Agents?
Answering these questions leads to a narrow set of conclusions.
So anyone who claims that they don’t need AI are technically right in the same way a person who said they don’t need the internet during the 1990s. You could have lived without the internet back then but that is not true today. Remove internet infrastructure, and society may very end up in a severe depression at best.
The same will hold true for AI in the future. Either we adopt it as a part of our society or we bear the cost of sustaining obsolete infrastructure.
The rest of the complaints about Pax Silica – like the environment, foreign influence or increased bills – are puerile, in my opinion. The ultimate question is how much is the Philippines willing to pay (and risk) to participate in the AI economy. Because faltering now and making no decision will lead to others making the decisions for us./PN
