RIYADH: The president of the Saudi Data and AI Authority has called for international cooperation to develop and deploy artificial intelligence in an ethical, safe and sustainable manner.

Speaking at the UNESCO Global Forum on the Ethics of AI, Abdullah bin Sharaf Alghamdi said that governments, researchers, civil society, young people and local communities all had a role to play.

“We need to work together, turn shared principles into action and make AI governance inclusive, accountable and people centered.

“We need to exchange tools and expertise and move from dialogue to shared principles in practice.”

Saudi Arabia was one of the first countries to sign UNESCO’s recommendation on AI ethics and in 2023 established the International Center for AI Research and Ethics in Riyadh.

“We have been investing in human capital for the responsible use of AI in all sectors,” Alghamdi said.

Saudi Arabia was currently working on a comprehensive framework on AI, he said, adding that more than 40 academic programs in data and AI had been launched and more than 1.2 million people had graduated from the One Million Saudis in AI Initiative.

UNESCO Deputy Director-General Asa Regner said that she was “delighted” to be in Riyadh for the forum and expressed her thanks to the event’s co-hosts, SDAIA and ICAIRE.

“This partnership is really meaningful,” she said. “Saudi Arabia completed UNESCO’s readiness assessment process last year and the ICAIRE has recently joined our network of category 2 centers with a mandate to strengthen research and capacity in AI ethics.

“We also had the opportunity to exchange on Saudi Arabia’s experience going through this process. That was very interesting to me. We do meet at a decisive moment. AI is advancing at an unprecedented speed, while governments struggle to keep pace. And in recent days we have heard several testimonies from the AI companies discussing this.”

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei issued a proposal at the weekend to slow down the technology’s advancement to ensure public safety. And in a rare display of unity, the heads of the largest US-based AI companies agreed.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis and xAI owner Elon Musk all posted support for Amodei’s proposal, titled “We Must Pace the Frontier,” with Altman saying that he would match Amodei’s commitment to embed outside evaluators within his company to verify safety practices.

Regner said that the first UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance, held in Geneva in July, underscored the need for stronger international cooperation and for every country to have a voice in shaping AI governance.

“Riyadh is about turning that shared ambition into practice and implementation,” she said.

In 2021 UNESCO’s member states adopted a recommendation on the ethics of AI — the Readiness Assessment Methodology — which was the first global standard in the field and provides technical expertise to countries to help them build national AI strategies and policies.

Regner said that 109 member states had moved to implement it and that it was already underway in 78 of them.

“UNESCO’s work, however, does not stop at policy design. We also support institutions that request it and people to put these principles into practice. In Africa alone we have trained 2,000 teachers and students for the safe use of AI.”

There was also a need for greater inclusion, she said.

“Women account for only 26 percent of employees in data and AI but we know from university data that women are very successful academically. They are really intellectual powerhouses.

“When women are absent from design and decision making, those inequalities can become embedded in the systems themselves and turn into biases. This is why gender equality — one of UNESCO’s two global priorities, alongside an Africa perspective on what we do — is embedded both in the recommendation and across our work.”

Saudi Arabia is the first Arab country to host the global forum, which runs until Thursday.