Amid global cries for regulation, WEF debuts a corporate framework for smart adoption of AI.

By Xische Editorial, January 30, 2020

The annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos is over. The first event of consequence on the global calendar, WEF sets the tone for discussions in the year to come. From modest beginnings, the conference has transformed into a major event on the global calendar, drawing influential politicians, business people, and thinkers to the Swiss Alps every winter. In recent years, the event has focused squarely on the ramifications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, in which new technologies are augmenting how we live, work, and communicate. Chief among these technologies is artificial intelligence (AI). 

There were two strands of AI debate at Davos this year. One dealt with how to handle innovations in AI technology and whether they should be proprietary in nature. The other was focused on how to regulate AI. Make no mistake, the rate of development in AI is staggering and so this discussion is long overdue on the international stage. 

As a result of the rapid pace of AI innovation, calls for regulation are getting louder. Business leaders, sensing those new regulations could dramatically affect their bottom lines, are trying to get in front of the debate. In the run-up to WEF, CEOs of major technology companies sounded the alarm over the need for better regulation. Google CEO Sundar Pichai took to the pages of the Financial Times to argue that “companies cannot just build new technology and let market forces decide how it will be used”. Pichai will join a chorus of other CEOs calling for a principled and regulated approach to applying AI in the marketplace and beyond. Even the computer giant IBM is calling “for standards to combat bias and ease concerns that the technology relies on data that bakes in discriminatory practices”. Partially driving these vociferous calls for regulation is the fact that major companies want to ensure they have a hand in drafting regulations to protect their business models. 

How to empower more people with the benefits of AI was a topic of intense discussion throughout the forum. One way WEF is trying to combat this challenge and raise awareness about the general risks associated with unregulated AI is through a new AI toolkit. 

The National reports that “in response to a growing need to raise awareness about the risks associated with artificial intelligence, WEF, together with the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Network Fellows from Accenture, BBVA, IBM and Suntory Holdings, worked with more than 100 companies and technology experts over the past year to create the 'Empowering AI Toolkit'. Developed with the structure of a company board meeting in mind, the toolkit provides a framework for mapping AI policy to company objectives and priorities.”

Outside of China, there are few nations that have embraced the power of AI to transform society like the UAE. Multinational organisations like WEF have a unique and pivotal role in getting the international community to agree on standards that codify a unified path forward. Right now, AI is dominated by the private sector and this is going to have to change at some point if the true potential of the technology is going to be realised. Through the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and the National AI Strategy, the UAE has been exploring how best to use AI in all sectors of society. This is unique among countries and one reason why the local AI sector is growing at such a fast pace. 

Since its beginning, WEF has been a champion of smaller countries that punch above their weight. It’s one reason why WEF opened the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in Dubai. Given the UAE’s open embrace of AI at every level of society, we will be influential in translating the discussions at WEF and turning them into a reality. We are the laboratory for the next wave of the AI revolution. As we unpack the headlines that trickled out from Davos, bear in mind that they are much more than rhetoric at home. They are blueprints for the next chapter in our evolving story as an emerging knowledge economy.