GCC’s role in shaping an ethical AI framework

Follow

GCC’s role in shaping an ethical AI framework

GCC’s role in shaping an ethical AI framework
GCC countries are uniquely positioned to set global benchmarks for ethical and positive AI advancement. (AFP file)
Short Url

Artificial intelligence has become an important focus of individuals and organizations in the public and private sectors because it holds immense promise for generating efficiencies, enhancing innovation and driving economic and social transformation.

But AI also brings potential dangers, including the possibility of widespread disinformation, concentration of power, social upheavals and disruptions. So how does society maximize the promise and minimize the peril associated with AI, which is still a largely unregulated space?

The Gulf Cooperation Council countries are uniquely positioned to set global benchmarks for ethical and positive AI advancement and implementation. Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE are already working toward an AI economy built as a force for good, focused on sustainable development and enhancing public services.

The UAE aims to be one of the leading nations in AI by 2031 with a goal of generating up to AED 335 billion ($91.21 billion) in extra growth. However, on a broader scale, there are several key challenges that are important to address when it comes to building a positive and sustainable AI ecosystem.

With a mindset that business can, and should, be a force for good in the world, it is imperative that business, government and other sectors work across disciplines to address complex innovations such as AI.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are shining examples of how we can launch pioneering initiatives to harness AI’s potential. The National Strategy for Data and AI in Saudi Arabia seeks to make the Kingdom a global leader in AI.

For instance, AI is revolutionizing Saudi Arabia’s healthcare sector by enabling early diagnosis and data-driven treatment planning. Similarly, the UAE’s efforts as part of its National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2031 incorporate AI in urban planning, upskilling and smart government facilities.

These efforts help bolster the economic potential for AI in the region and contribute to the well-being of the community at large.

From logistics powered by autonomous systems to predictive analytics, the GCC is at the forefront of practical AI implementation across key sectors. However, as new technologies emerge, there is heightened potential for job displacement. Government and business collaboration is essential to protect society’s most vulnerable in the future of work.

One key issue facing many companies is the potential for algorithmic bias and discrimination in AI adoption. For example, one global tech company’s AI hiring tool was found to prioritize male candidates due to historical biases in its training data.

To avoid such pitfalls, governments and private institutions must ensure that all approved AI systems are built on diverse and equitable datasets. Policies should mandate ongoing audits of algorithms to detect and rectify biases, aligning with global standards while reflecting regional priorities.

Data privacy is paramount in the digital age. Saudi Arabia’s Personal Data Protection Law and the UAE’s forthcoming Federal Data Protection Law mark significant steps toward safeguarding personal information. However, enforcement must be coupled with public education to build a culture of trust.

Initiatives like Saudi Arabia’s Human Capability Development Program are equipping residents with critical skills in data analytics and machine learning.

Paul Almeida

Companies should commit to transparency in how data is collected, stored and used while empowering users with greater control over their information. Data protection frameworks must also evolve to address emerging risks such as AI-driven surveillance and misuse of sensitive information.

The automation of routine tasks through AI presents challenges such as job displacement, but also many opportunities for training and upskilling.

As we embrace the role of AI in organizations it is important that we ensure the less educated and less privileged in society are not left behind in the future of work. Initiatives like Saudi Arabia’s Human Capability Development Program are equipping residents with critical skills in data analytics and machine learning — essential for a prosperous AI ecosystem. Businesses must align with such efforts by offering tailored reskilling programs, ensuring employees transition seamlessly into new roles created by AI advancements.

As GCC countries make the transition to renewable energy supplies, there is an opportunity for AI systems to play a fundamental role in energy innovation.

Saudi Arabia’s NEOM project is a prime example of how AI can be deployed to repair the environment while building a sustainable metropolis. AI-powered systems in NEOM optimize energy usage, manage water resources and support biodiversity restoration.

By championing such initiatives, GCC countries are demonstrating how AI can tackle global challenges like climate change and resource scarcity, setting a powerful precedent for the rest of the world.

Looking ahead, there is an opportunity to learn from proof-of-concept systems developed by the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Ethical AI requires strong leadership and cross-sector collaboration. As part of its campaign to attract global talent and business, the UAE’s “UAI Mark” offers a certification that verifies safe, efficient, and quality AI companies. These indicators ensure a bold but steady path toward responsible innovation.

At institutions such as Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, students are trained to navigate the moral dilemmas posed by AI while embracing values-based leadership. This ethos must extend to public-private partnerships, where governments, businesses and academia work together to embed ethics into AI development.

The GCC’s growing ecosystem of AI innovation hubs and research centers offer positive grounds for such collaboration.

Robust governance is the backbone of ethical AI adoption. Saudi Arabia’s NSDAI and the UAE’s Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence exemplify the region’s commitment to comprehensive AI governance.

However, these frameworks must remain dynamic, adapting to new challenges such as cybersecurity. International collaboration can further enrich the GCC’s approach, enabling it to contribute its unique perspective to global AI governance.

The GCC has the vision, resources and determination to be a leader in responsible AI. The region is also well placed to attract global research talent to build a sturdy AI network that addresses global ethical AI challenges.

AI adoption is one part of this strategy, but more importantly, we should refocus our efforts on reshaping societies to benefit from technology while reflecting human values. While championing AI’s potential for social good, the region can set a global standard for responsible innovation.

Paul Almeida is dean and William R. Berkley is chair of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

 

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point of view

Ex-world No. 1 Halep announces retirement after home defeat

Ex-world No. 1 Halep announces retirement after home defeat
Updated 2 min 39 sec ago
Follow

Ex-world No. 1 Halep announces retirement after home defeat

Ex-world No. 1 Halep announces retirement after home defeat
  • Halep returned to tennis in March last year after her career had been on hold since Oct. 7, 2022, after testing positive for roxadustat at the US Open
  • Halep won 24 WTA titles over her 19-year career including the French Open in 2018 and Wimbledon in 2019

BUCHAREST: Former tennis world No. 1 Simona Halep announced her retirement on Tuesday after her first-round defeat at the WTA Cluj-Napoca tournament in her native Romania.

The 33-year-old lost 6-1, 6-1 to 72nd-ranked Italian Lucia Bronzetti.

“I don’t know if it is with joy or sadness that I speak to you but I made this decision in my soul and conscience, I have always been lucid. My body no longer follows, but today I wanted to play and say my goodbyes on the court,” Halep told the Romanian crowd.

The two-time Grand Slam champion, who had been working to re-establish herself after a doping ban, pulled out of Australian Open qualifying last month citing pain in her knee and shoulder.

Halep returned to tennis in March last year after her career had been on hold since Oct. 7, 2022, after testing positive for roxadustat at the US Open.

The winner of the 2018 French Open and 2019 Wimbledon singles titles was then caught up in a second affair, over “irregularities” in the data of her biological passport.

She was handed a four-year ban by the ITIA, but successfully appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), arguing her positive test for roxadustat — used to treat anaemia and banned as a blood doping agent — was the result of a tainted supplement.

She denied knowingly doping and her ban was reduced from four years to nine months.

But she never managed to regain the level that allowed her to rise to the top of the world rankings in October 2017, a position she occupied for a total of 64 weeks in her career.

Halep won 24 WTA titles over her 19-year career including the French Open in 2018 and Wimbledon in 2019.

She also played in three other Grand Slam finals — the French Open in 2014 and 2017 and the Australian Open in 2018.


The Aga Khan, spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims and a philanthropist, dies at 88

The Aga Khan, spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims and a philanthropist, dies at 88
Updated 15 min 54 sec ago
Follow

The Aga Khan, spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims and a philanthropist, dies at 88

The Aga Khan, spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims and a philanthropist, dies at 88
  • Over decades, the Aga Khan evolved into a business magnate and a philanthropist, moving between the spiritual and the worldly with ease

PARIS: The Aga Khan, who became the spiritual leader of the world’s millions of Ismaili Muslims at age 20 as a Harvard undergraduate and poured a material empire built on billions of dollars in tithes into building homes, hospitals and schools in developing countries, died Tuesday. He was 88.
His Aga Khan Development Network and the Ismaili religious community announced that His Highness Prince Karim Al-Hussaini, the Aga Khan IV and 49th hereditary imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, died in Portugal surrounded by his family.
His successor was designated in his will, which will be read in the presence of his family and religious leaders in Lisbon before the name is made public. A date has not been announced. The successor is chosen from among his male progeny or other relatives, according to the Ismaili community’s website.
Considered by his followers to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV was a student when his grandfather passed over his playboy father as his successor to lead the diaspora of Shia Ismaili Muslims, saying his followers should be led by a young man “who has been brought up in the midst of the new age.”
Over decades, the Aga Khan evolved into a business magnate and a philanthropist, moving between the spiritual and the worldly with ease.
While his death was announced late in the day in Europe and the Middle East, ceremonies were already being held Tuesday in Ismaili communities in the US Condolences poured in online from charity groups he supported, as well as the equestrian world, where he was a well-known figure.
“An extraordinarily compassionate global leader,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday, calling him a very good friend. “He will be deeply, deeply missed by people around the world.”
Treated as a head of state, the Aga Khan was given the title of “His Highness” by Queen Elizabeth in July 1957, two weeks after his grandfather the Aga Khan III unexpectedly made him heir to the family’s 1,300-year dynasty as leader of the Ismaili Muslim sect.
He became the Aga Khan IV on Oct. 19, 1957, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on the spot where his grandfather once had his weight equaled in diamonds in gifts from his followers.
He had left Harvard to be at his ailing grandfather’s side, and returned to school 18 months later with an entourage and a deep sense of responsibility.
“I was an undergraduate who knew what his work for the rest of his life was going to be,” he said in a 2012 interview with Vanity Fair magazine. “I don’t think anyone in my situation would have been prepared.”
A defender of Islamic culture and values, he was widely regarded as a builder of bridges between Muslim societies and the West despite — or perhaps because of — his reticence to become involved in politics.
The Aga Khan Development Network, his main philanthropic organization, deals mainly with issues of health care, housing, education and rural economic development. It says it works in over 30 countries and has an annual budget of about $1 billion for nonprofit development activities.
A network of hospitals bearing his name are scattered in places where health care had lacked for the poorest, including Bangladesh, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, where he spent tens of millions of dollars for development of local economies.
The extent of the Aga Khan’s financial empire is hard to measure. Some reports estimated his personal wealth to be in the billions.
The Ismailis — a sect originally centered in India but which expanded to large communities in east Africa, Central and South Asia and the Middle East — consider it a duty to tithe up to 12.5 percent of their income to him as steward.
“We have no notion of the accumulation of wealth being evil,” he told Vanity Fair in 2012. “The Islamic ethic is that if God has given you the capacity or good fortune to be a privileged individual in society, you have a moral responsibility to society.”
The Ismaili community’s website said he was born on Dec. 13, 1936, in Creux-de-Genthod, near Geneva, Switzerland, the son of Joan Yarde-Buller and Aly Khan, and spent part of his childhood in Nairobi, Kenya — where a hospital now bears his name.
He became well-known as a horse breeder and owner, and he represented Iran in the 1964 Winter Olympics as a skier. His eye for building and design led him to establish an architecture prize, and programs for Islamic Architecture at MIT and Harvard. He restored ancient Islamic structures throughout the world.
The Aga Khan lived at length in France and had been based in Portugal for the past several years. His development network and foundation are based in Switzerland.
The Aga Khan will be buried in Lisbon. The date was not released.
He is survived by three sons and a daughter and several grandchildren.

 


Netanyahu hails Trump as ‘greatest friend Israel has ever had’

Netanyahu hails Trump as ‘greatest friend Israel has ever had’
Updated 21 min 10 sec ago
Follow

Netanyahu hails Trump as ‘greatest friend Israel has ever had’

Netanyahu hails Trump as ‘greatest friend Israel has ever had’
  • The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations: “Our homeland is our homeland, if part of it is destroyed, the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian people selected the choice to return to it”

WASHINGTON: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed Donald Trump as the “greatest friend Israel has ever had,” following a meeting between the two leaders at the White House.
“I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again: you are the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House,” Netanyahu told reporters after the meeting in Washington. “And that’s why the people of Israel have such enormous respect for you.”
 

 


Vietnamese man sentenced to 44 years for plotting suicide attack at London’s Heathrow

Metropolitan Police officers stand guard in central London, on January 21, 2023. (AFP)
Metropolitan Police officers stand guard in central London, on January 21, 2023. (AFP)
Updated 55 min 58 sec ago
Follow

Vietnamese man sentenced to 44 years for plotting suicide attack at London’s Heathrow

Metropolitan Police officers stand guard in central London, on January 21, 2023. (AFP)
  • He spent a year in Yemen, where he received “military-type” training and helped prepare the group’s magazine, Inspire, working directly with Samir Khan, a US citizen who served as its editor and died in a US drone strike in 2011, according to the departme

LONDON: A Vietnamese man was sentenced to 44 years in prison for attempting to carry out a suicide attack at Heathrow International Airport in London, the US Department of Justice said on Tuesday.
Minh Quang Pham, 41, who was alleged to have traveled to Yemen to receive military training from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, had previously pleaded guilty charges that included providing material support to the group.
US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle R. Sassoon described his actions not only as an affront to the safety of the US “but to the principles of peace and security that we hold dear.”
“Today’s sentencing underscores our collective resolve to stop terrorism before it occurs, and place would-be terrorists in prison,” Sassoon said in a statement.
The Justice Department said Pham traveled from the United Kingdom to Yemen in December 2010 and took an oath of allegiance to the militant group, which the United States lists as a terrorist organization.
He spent a year in Yemen, where he received “military-type” training and helped prepare the group’s magazine, Inspire, working directly with Samir Khan, a US citizen who served as its editor and died in a US drone strike in 2011, according to the department.
Pham was arrested by British authorities in 2011 and extradited to the United States four years later to face terrorism charges, it added.

 

 


UN chief looks forward to continuing ‘productive’ relationship with Trump

UN chief looks forward to continuing ‘productive’ relationship with Trump
Updated 58 min 24 sec ago
Follow

UN chief looks forward to continuing ‘productive’ relationship with Trump

UN chief looks forward to continuing ‘productive’ relationship with Trump
  • “The Secretary-General looks forward to continuing his productive relationship with President Trump and the US government to strengthen that relationship in today’s turbulent world”

UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has worked tirelessly to implement many reforms to increase efficiency and innovation, a UN spokesperson said on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump said the world body had to get its act together.
“From day one, US support for the United Nations has saved countless lives and advanced global security,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.
“The Secretary-General looks forward to continuing his productive relationship with President Trump and the US government to strengthen that relationship in today’s turbulent world.”