Global leaders stress the importance of responsible use of artificial intelligence in the development of societies

Global leaders in the government, business, charitable work and civil society sectors stressed the importance of employing artificial intelligence to reduce disparities and development gaps between countries of the world, during a high-level dialogue session, held by Badr Jaafar, the Special Envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Business and Charitable Affairs, in cooperation with the Prime Minister’s Office, entitled “The Best Ways to Apply Smart Solutions to Achieve Practical and Equitable Results Across Sectors” within the activities of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Badr Jaafar, Hoda Al Hashemi, Assistant Minister of Cabinet Affairs for Strategic Affairs, and more than 50 senior executive leaders from the government sector, global technology companies, charitable foundations, multilateral institutions, and social innovation organizations participated in the session.

The attendees discussed the importance of enhancing coordination and alignment between government policies, private sector innovations, and strategic philanthropy, to quickly and effectively transform artificial intelligence innovations into tangible social results and impacts, especially in emerging markets that lack services.

The participants enriched the dialogue with diverse visions and experiences, and stressed that dealing with the opportunities and challenges associated with artificial intelligence is a collective task that is impossible for one party to confront.

Her Highness Sheikha Shamma bint Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, CEO of Frontier25 and The Climate Tribe, said: “Many AI tools designed to support climate adaptation have had broad societal impacts. Although it is the most vulnerable groups – including women, youth and low-income people – who face the brunt of the consequences of extreme climate events and rising temperatures, the effective use of AI allows We can benefit from insights into energy production and consumption, develop early warning systems to reduce risks, and build data-based strategies to enhance resilience, and thus better deal with the impact of climate change on these groups.”

Her Highness added: “The UAE is leading efforts in investing in the most innovative technological solutions. While artificial intelligence has great potential to support our planet, we have a clear moral responsibility that requires its use consciously and transparently, in a way that serves both humans and the environment.”

Badr Jaafar spoke at the opening of the session about the disparity between the speed of development of artificial intelligence on the one hand and its practical application as solutions to social challenges. He said: “Reconciliation between artificial intelligence and social innovations is required to achieve the desired goals, because the development of innovation depends on understanding its risks and highlighting its results. This is what we witnessed in the UAE, which adopted a clear approach based on trust and governance, combining early investments in digital infrastructure, skills, and application across the private sector, with the result that pioneering ideas move from the experimental stage to the field of implementation.”

He added: “When governments, business, and philanthropy agree on this principle and unite on this approach, strategic philanthropy will become a driver for courses of action by removing early risks and investing in infrastructure that supports effective methodologies and solutions and ensures rapid and comprehensive implementation.”

For her part, Hoda Al Hashemi, Assistant Minister of Cabinet Affairs for Strategic Affairs, stressed the UAE government’s keenness to strengthen international multilateral cooperation in developing technological solutions supported by artificial intelligence, governance of this sector, and promoting responsible innovation in various fields, which reflects positively on development efforts, supports the development of the international charitable sector, and contributes to enabling societies around the world to catch up with the future and benefit from its solutions in achieving prosperity and sustainable growth.

Huda Al Hashemi said that innovation based on societal impact represents the primary driving force in supporting development efforts and responsible adoption of artificial intelligence solutions, and the most important factor in determining the path of this rapidly developing sector, to enhance its positive effects and its contribution to facing future challenges that are most closely related to the lives of societies.

Reducing development disparities

Participants in the session stressed the need for rapid development in infrastructure not to widen the gap in development disparities, but rather to contribute to reducing them, especially since programming, data, and skills capabilities are still concentrated in a small number of countries. The attendees discussed the impact of incentives on the application of innovations in terms of place and manner, noting that despite the huge capital flowing into the field of artificial intelligence globally, only a very small portion of it is allocated to address pressing social and development challenges.

The attendees called for more coordinated steps to ensure the achievement of positive social impacts through the combined efforts of governments, businesses, and charitable work according to an organized methodology that adopts clear governance directions and frameworks from government institutions, charitable capital that supports shared infrastructure, and efforts from the private sector to develop solutions, expand their scope, and ensure their sustainability.

The session touched on the pioneering Emirati model that embodies this organized collaborative methodology, which is based on adoption in the early stages, accelerated experiments with correction when necessary, and then sustainable investment in skills, governance, and enhancing confidence. They pointed out that the UAE leads the world in the rate of diffusion of artificial intelligence technology according to a Microsoft report, recording twice the levels of confidence in artificial intelligence in the United States and the majority of European countries.