Latin America’s AI specialists head to richer pastures
Many of South America's best AI specialists are migrating to richer countries — leaving behind thousands of lesser skilled workers that North America then uses for outsourced low-wage jobs.
Transcript
00:00 Argentina, for example, uses AI to monitor its prices.
00:05 Still, regulation isn't the top priority for Latin American governments, says researcher
00:10 Beatriz Busaniche.
00:13 "The north-south divide in the field is brutal.
00:18 Latin America is more than capable of training people, but individuals educated in our universities
00:23 are quickly extracted from the region by working remote, or even by moving to the north entirely.
00:28 It is impossible to compete with the incentives for research that exist in the northern hemisphere."
00:38 On the flip side, companies in rich countries outsource a lot of the human labor behind
00:42 AI.
00:43 "There are many simple jobs here, like paperwork or training the AI itself, jobs you don't
00:51 need much schooling for.
00:54 Poorly paid, precarious work is outsourced to the south.
00:58 While specialists trained at our universities work in the north."
01:06 Corporations have been using this strategy for decades.
01:09 One size fits all rules for the AI industry may change that in the future.