Don’t be afraid of AI, but you may lose your job if you don’t embrace it

Western Cape Premier Alan Winde hosted the first Premier’s Council on Skills for 2025 at the AWS Skills Center in Cape Town this week.Naturally, the topic of AI came up with some conflicting advice.Winde reckons we shouldn’t fear AI but a speaker for AWS warned that those who don’t embrace AI may lose jobs.

On Wednesday, Premier Alan Winde hosted the first Premier’s Council on Skills for 2025 and you’d be unsurprised to learn that artificial intelligence (AI) was a main talking point.That’s not only because the council was held at the AWS Skills Center in Cape Town, but also because the technology is very relevant in today’s society, especially in South Africa where the tech is a direct threat to jobs.But Winde told those at the meeting, “Don’t be scared of artificial intelligence”.



“But we must be cognizant of the challenges that come with the rapid development of technologies, such as AI. There is no denying that AI is here to stay, and therefore, the Western Cape must harness its immense potential. For us as a government, what drives our AI-journey is how do we use AI to improve and expand our services for our residents,” the premier added.

That’s encouraging, but it was immediately followed up with a comment from AWS’ Shivagami Gugan that fails to accomplish anything but scare people.“Those who may lose jobs are those who did not jump on the AI bandwagon. Humans, however, can never be completely replaced.

We all need to reskill and upskill ourselves,” said Gugan.It’s tough to reconcile “don’t be scared of AI” with “if you don’t embrace AI you won’t have a job”. While it’s true that artificial intelligence is becoming a popular tool, we suspect that a lot of the hype around the tech is just that, hype.

Data from SensorTower reveals that while there is much talk about how AI can benefit the world or work and beyond, the tech isn’t really drawing in money. The trouble with that is the companies who develop the tech have bills to pay and while free access brings in users, converting those users into loyal, paying customers is a huge task.What this means is that for all the speculation that AI exists in (could be worth, may generate revenue of X, should one day be better etc.

) there is an awfully large degree of certainty coming out of the mouths of developers when PR coaches aren’t around. Case in point, Gugan above. What if AI turns out to have been nothing but a fun experiment and, on the advice of so-called experts like the AWS employee, folks plough their time and resources into AI, only for it to crash like so many other tech breakouts did.

The fact is that billions has been poured into AI development over the last few years and there is, as yet, no real signs of a return on those investments that amounts to anything greater than speculation.We recognise that ignoring artificial intelligence altogether is silly as well, the tech is making an impact no matter how little long term value we see in it.What we really need, however, is for people like Winde to do some real work and determine if AI is really the best solution for a province like the Western Cape and South Africa as a whole.

There are myriad problems for government to address before we dive into the latest tech hotness like the rest of the world. Balance is required here and outright statements like “AI is here to stay” ignore the last few years of innovations that were “here to stay”.For one, can we migrate television to a digital environment, free up some spectrum and connect the unconnected first? It’s tough for people to embrace artificial intelligence if they can’t even get online after all.

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