I KNOW enough HTML and CSS to create a trashy web page or two, but not enough to create a polished, professional website.
Well, last week I spent an hour instructing Elon Musk’s Grok to create a simple website and it gave me one. It was essentially indistinguishable from many professional sites today.
Great, right?
Not if you’re a web developer. Not if you work in software. Not if you’re in the business process outsourcing industry.
If a web development illiterate like me can make a website, others can do the same. It’s just a question of knowing what kind of prompts to tell the AI.
And it won’t end with just websites. Videos, music and most office work will be effectively lost because of AI.
That is not to say these are completely lost. What it does mean it will compress demand for those kinds of jobs, which means that our middle class will take a big hit, which means a big hit to our economy.
This problem is nothing new. Everyone is aware of the threat of AI to certain types of employment.
For Filipinos deprived of office and BPO work, that leaves only one alternative: Work abroad.
But as anyone who reads my column regularly knows, that may not be a viable solution either, especially if geopolitical problems get worse.
An alternative is to this: Embrace AI.
We are already part of Pax Silica, but the building process will take years. We might as well hasten that by creating a nationwide strategy.
If our leaders are incapable of creating one, they can just copy the American or Japanese. Having such a strategy is better than having none and waiting. It will prepare our population for the coming transition, identify sectors that can be best served by AI and direct investment into AI industries.
So far, all I’m seeing are scattered efforts, like the upcoming AIFest in August. We need to double down. We need a national AI strategy, because looking at trends, other countries are already ahead, and even they are barely coping with the AI transition./PN
