ULP to detail AI policy in election manifesto

Minister of Finance Camillo Gonsalves says the ruling Unity Labour Party will outline its policy on artificial intelligence (AI) in its manifesto for the upcoming general election.

“… we have an AI policy in the Unity Labour Party that we are going to roll out in our next term in office to take advantage of the many, many positives of AI and guard against some of the abuses and negatives,” he said on the party’s radio station, Star FM.

“AI is a reality that we have to grapple with,” he said, adding that when he speaks of AI, he does not mean just ChatGPT.

He said he was referring to large language models, including Copilot and Gemini.

 “… they’re getting better every day, and they can do incredible things, but that’s only a segment of what AI is,” he said.

“AI is going to make … a lot of government activities more efficient, faster. It’s going to make crime-fighting better. It’s going to make customer service improved, but it is also going … to be disruptive in the job market, because there’re going to be a lot of things that AI can do that humans don’t need to do anymore.”

The finance minister said human beings have to be trained to do things that AI can’t do, adding that they also have to be trained to manipulate AI.

“So that if you have a job and part of your job will be interacting with artificial intelligence, you have to understand how to interact with artificial intelligence,” he said.

He said there are courses in universities called prompt engineering, teaching people to ask AI the right questions to get the right information back.

“So, you can’t just fire up a large language model and say, ‘Tell me how to run St. Vincent and the Grenadines.’

“Yeah, you’re going to get something very basic. But if you understand the type of information that the artificial intelligence has access to, the type of trigger words that you need to get the type of information that you want, it can be very, very useful.”

Gonsalves said the government has a programme going forward to expose young people to AI.

“You can’t hide them from it. … Teach them ethically how AI should be used, apply AI to common tasks and functions in the government and educate people to make sure that they have the skill sets to navigate an AI-powered world.”

The finance minister said the disruptions of technology are happening faster.

“It used to be you see a man with a telephone today; 40 years later, you see him with a cell phone. Now, AI is like from last week to this week.

“AI has learned exponentially, and so, we have policies in place, or a framework in place, where we will embrace the positives of AI, guard against some of the negatives, and make sure that their skill sets in the government, in the education system, and most importantly, in our next generation, to understand and use AI going forward. “

He said the government will lay it all out in a way that is clear and understandable.

The finance minister said Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves spoke more than five budgets ago about the role that AI will play.

“Before any of us were talking about ChatGPT, the prime minister made a speech in Parliament during budget about artificial intelligence, and people were rolling their eyes.

“… he had a whole conversation about how AI was going to transform the way we live… But it was, it’s something he’s been thinking about for a while, something he’s been reading about for a while, and I think that it has informed a very progressive policy on AI that we’ll be able to talk about.”

General elections in St. Vincent and the Grenadines are widely expected by November 2025, ahead of the February 2026 constitutional deadline.