While the world rewrites itself with AI, Will Guyana learn to swim before the water reaches our necks?

Mar 01, 2026 Features / Columnists, News

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By Karen Abrams, MBA. AA. Doctoral Candidate

Kaieteur News) – In a recent conversation about artificial intelligence, one line stayed with me. The change ahead is not like a light switch. It is like realizing the water has been rising around you and is now at your chest.

For years, AI felt like a novelty. A chatbot that could draft an email; a system that sometimes got basic arithmetic wrong; something interesting, perhaps useful, but not urgent; that era is over.

In 2022, AI could not reliably multiply simple numbers. By 2023, it was passing professional exams. By 2024, it was writing working software and explaining graduate-level science. This year, engineers at top firms openly admit they are handing most of their coding work to AI systems. Not in ten years but now!

The acceleration is not linear. It is exponential. And Guyana cannot afford to treat it as background noise.

What has changed is not simply that AI has become smarter. It has become autonomous. These systems are no longer waiting patiently for a prompt. They can be instructed to build an entire software application, test it, debug it, refine it, and return with a completed product. They function less like calculators and more like digital research assistants. In some cases, they work for days or weeks without human intervention.

That matters for Guyana.

When software development, accounting workflows, customer service systems, design work, legal research, and even elements of engineering can be automated at scale the global labour market shifts. Companies will not hire based on sympathy. They will hire based on cost and productivity. If one AI agent can do the work of ten entry level staff, entry level roles disappear first.

We must ask ourselves a difficult question. What happens to our young graduates if the jobs they are preparing for are compressed or automated within five years?

Right now, many in Guyana are still at the “this is interesting” stage of AI. We are experimenting with tools. We are attending workshops. We are hearing speeches about digital transformation. But globally, industries are already restructuring. Entry level positions in technology and customer service are being reduced. AI voice systems are replacing call centre operators. Digital agents are drafting contracts, analyzing data, and producing reports.

The most dangerous mistake we can make is assuming that because we do not yet feel the full impact locally, we have time. The water does not announce when it reaches your chest.

Let me be clear. I am a technology optimist. AI can transform education. It can personalize learning for every child. It can support small entrepreneurs. It can help farmers optimize yields and doctors interpret diagnostic data. It can increase productivity and reduce inefficiency in government systems. In the long term, it can lift human potential.

But the transition between here and there will not be smooth.

Even in the best case scenario, rapid change destabilizes societies. People lose jobs. Anxiety rises. Political tensions increase. Communities fracture. We saw a preview of this kind of disruption during the pandemic. Now imagine repeated waves of economic change over the next fifteen to twenty years.

The issue is not whether AI is good or bad. The issue is whether we prepare our people psychologically, educationally, and economically for accelerated change.

Guyana is experiencing historic economic growth. Oil revenues are reshaping our fiscal capacity. Infrastructure projects are expanding. Universities are graduating more students. Parents are encouraging children to pursue science and engineering degrees. But we must align our national education strategy with the world our children are actually entering.

If the future workforce is one where individuals conduct AI systems rather than compete with them, then our education system must shift from memorization to creation. Students must learn how to manage AI tools responsibly, how to design and own projects, how to solve real world problems, how to think critically about technology, and how to build rather than merely consume.

We cannot retreat into pen and paper nostalgia as a defence against AI. Nor can we allow unchecked digital dependency that erodes thinking skills. The path forward requires balance. Strong foundational knowledge combined with AI fluency and project based application.

Globally, much of the AI conversation focuses on whether these systems might one day become uncontrollable. That is a legitimate concern. But for Guyana, the more immediate risk is social disruption caused by economic displacement and educational misalignment.

If we prepare too slowly, our graduates will compete in a global market where AI productivity defines value. If we overreact or deny the shift, we risk irrelevance.

The safest strategy is not fear. It is readiness.

As AI accelerates, we must ask how we maintain dignity in work, how we preserve purpose, how we ensure that productivity gains translate into opportunity rather than exclusion, and how we prevent a widening divide between those who can leverage AI and those who cannot.

Guyana has a rare advantage. We are small. We are growing. We are not burdened by massive legacy systems that cannot adapt. If we act decisively, we can build an education and workforce model that integrates AI intelligently rather than reacting to it defensively.

The water is rising. We can panic. We can deny it. Or we can learn to navigate it.

The future will not wait for us to feel ready. The question is whether we will prepare our people before the water reaches our necks.

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• AI, Artificial intelligence, chatbot, Karen Abrams, software development

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