Robot or mind, who controls the economy and humans?
Robot or mind. The world is currently living in the midst of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, abbreviated with the words “Artificial Intelligence,” and it is clear that its human impacts and political, economic, and social dangers exceed everything we have ever witnessed.
It is not limited to a country or a sector in itself, but is sweeping across various aspects of life on the surface. The planet, and establishes a radical change in the way people live and deal with each other.
If it starts from software and algorithms, it is in fact composed and generated from the core of the political decision and what the interests of states impose, primarily security and military, and then economically.
The rapid development of its elements in recent years, which is beyond imagination, is a race that does not recognize controls or borders, and for about a year it has taken a dangerous turn in the struggle against technology companies, and in consequence of the influence that they exploit as private institutions and as states, each according to its location, size and interests.
Robot or mind
If the “digital revolution” led us to “a state of conformity and voluntary slavery, in which the individual strips naked for the benefit of a handful of multinational companies, most of which are American,” as writers Mark Dougan and Christophe Labbe say in their book “The Naked Man: The Hidden Dictatorship of the Digital,” What more can be exposed in the age of artificial intelligence?
The authors lament the world of George Orwell, which he formulated in his novel “1984.” The model of dictatorial domination that Orwell described has been surpassed on the technological level, and here artificial intelligence heralds us with machine breakthroughs as a collective memory of humanity that has no limits.
Artificial intelligence
In the era of robots, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, and the Internet of Things, we are on the verge of a new history that will change the face of the world forever, as machines and virtual services compete with the role of humans in terms of capabilities, skills, and competencies, despite the tremendous growth in productivity.
The rules of the game change, and fears of losing. Human control over autonomous technical development, which is feared to be destructive.
This reality has prompted the countries of the world to seriously seek to establish controls and regulations in an attempt to take control, especially since this technology is currently subject to the whims of private companies that compete with each other to reap profits, without regard to the consequences of their practices, plans, and products that exceed their purely economic borders, and pose problems. Ethical and legal, not least data privacy breaches, bias and the dangers that can result from misuse.
Breaking through the traditional economy
There is no final vision yet about the impact of artificial intelligence on the global economy, but the two sure conclusions are that productivity will rise, and that profound transformations are on their way to penetrating traditional economic paths.
Also, artificial intelligence will pose a major challenge to the systems of governance and local and international intellectual and literary property rights, given the extremely rapid spread of digital development, supported by the largest technology companies in the world and the private sector, which has moved in the past decade from the margins of interest of political, military and economic authorities, to the center. Basic investment and the focus of economic transformation.
Global investment in artificial intelligence fields has increased since 2010 from about $800 million to $78 billion in 2021, and it is estimated that this technology will contribute up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy in 2030, of which $6.6 trillion Added production value. The Middle East region is likely to reap about 2 percent of the total global benefits of artificial intelligence by the end of the current decade, equivalent to about $320 billion.
Robot or mind
In parallel estimates, a study by Accenture believes that artificial intelligence technologies can enhance work productivity by up to 40 percent in 2035, while a recent report issued by the McKinsey Global Institute states that artificial intelligence can achieve An additional economic investment of about $13 trillion by 2030, boosting global gross domestic product by about 1.2 percent annually. Robot or mind
If these numbers indicate anything, they confirm that although artificial intelligence has increasingly penetrated our daily lives in all its aspects, its capabilities discovered and used are still in their infancy, and we are still unable to anticipate the actual future of this technology, and the greatest challenge remains in working to disseminate it.
And controlling it, as its adoption and integration in advanced economies may enhance the digital gap with developing economies, and fuel conflicts and wars over the advantage of developing it and excelling in its use. According to CB Insights, out of 100 promising global companies in the field of artificial intelligence, the United States accounts for 64 percent, followed by the United Kingdom with 8 percent, China and Israel with 6 percent, and Canada with 5 percent. While Arab companies have been absent from the scene so far.
Data is like food for humans: Robot or mind
The invasion of artificial intelligence is not new. Despite the great progress it has witnessed over the past decade in particular, its theoretical and technological foundations have been in continuous development over the past seventy years through the efforts of scientists such as Alan Turing, Marvin Minsky, and John McCarthy.
The most prominent findings of the theories, other than the fusion of artificial intelligence in various fields and sectors, economic, medical, educational, artistic, creative, political, military, and others, what is new is the ability of this technology to self-learn from experience and adapt over time, and here lies its danger.
Artificial intelligence is seen as an advanced and ideal way to automate tasks and help them perform them faster and more effectively, as well as help make better decisions, or even make decisions without human intervention.
Growth of artificial intelligence
The growth of artificial intelligence is mainly based on data, as it is like food for humans. With the increasing capabilities of storing this data and its huge size (Big Data).
And its steady growth estimated at more than 50 percent annually since 2010, innovation has become more evident, and even generates an endless series of innovations, making global competition intense, in various fields, and the race To establish this technology at its peak, especially the openness of many Arab countries to it.
Led by Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, which find in their strategic adoption solutions to diversify their economies and sustain them or address their crises in the long term, and enhance education and training opportunities to prepare future generations for future economic and social requirements, as well as Modernizing governance and transparency systems enabled by artificial intelligence technology.
A study by Accenture believes that artificial intelligence technologies can enhance labor productivity by up to 40 percent in 2035, while a recent report issued by the McKinsey Global Institute states that artificial intelligence can achieve an additional economic output of about 13 trillion dollars per year. By 2030
From 1956, when McCarthy, a cognitive scientist and professor of computer science at Stanford University, suggested that human intelligence could be replicated “so precisely.
That a machine could be made to imitate it,” all the way up to 1965, when Herbert Simon, the American political scientist and pioneer of intelligence programming, expressed Artificial Intelligence, convinced that “machines will be able to do any work that humans can do”, was a technology that was constantly growing, with computer programs that “learned” from data, acting intelligently and mimicking human cognition. Terms such as “deep learning,” “machine learning,” and “natural language processing” have become familiar today, and we even deal with them in our practices, daily work, and services provided to us, whether we realize it or not.
What does it mean in the language of economics?
When talking about the relationship of artificial intelligence to the economy, the matter is not limited to integrating this technology into the traditional economic system, to raise productivity, accelerate business, enhance its effectiveness, and provide services in an intelligent and sustainable manner. All of this paves the way for a broad structural transformation of markets and employment, allowing economies that rely on artificial intelligence.
To produce things differently, and even to produce innovative things automatically. Productivity in the economic model based on artificial intelligence goes beyond the combination of physical and human capital, to be added to the technical element as a major driver of growth and innovation, exceeding human capabilities and characterized by faster and deeper machine learning, and improving over time to increase in value, unlike traditional capital.
Smart automation Robot or mind
If what a virtual employee, or what is known as smart automation, accomplishes in a matter of days, takes months to be completed by a number of people, then how about if this employee’s knowledge doubles through self-learning and his productivity doubles to complete other new tasks in the same period of time, and enhance the skills of the workforce? It leads to new innovations and more interactive, unconventional working methods, such as chatbots, that drive business growth, and thus economic growth. Robot or mind
As for the Middle East, especially in the Arab countries, the approach to matters and the basic motives for benefiting from this progress and catching up with artificial intelligence in particular differ, as governments sponsor the development of plans and strategies, finance and follow them, and create a friendly regulatory environment for their success.
How could these countries, especially the Gulf ones, see the application of artificial intelligence as a historic opportunity to diversify their economies away from oil, which still constitutes more than 50 percent of the budgets of some of them, and whose markets have witnessed major setbacks and turmoil over the years? Robot or mind
An International Data Corporation (IDC) report estimates that spending on cognitive and artificial intelligence systems in the Middle East and Africa region will rise from $37.5 million in 2017 to more than $100 million in 2021, representing annual growth of about 33 percent. This increased spending is due to companies in the region investing heavily in new technology, with support from governments, as they are the primary users of these technologies.
Saudi Arabia and the Emirates
The annual growth in the economic contribution of artificial intelligence in the region is expected to reach between 20 percent and 34 percent, representing about $320 billion in added value achieved by 2030, stemming not only from improving services and products, but also from an increase in productivity and efficiency. And a reduction in costs.
The United Arab Emirates leads this growth, followed by Saudi Arabia, where artificial intelligence is expected to add up to 1.1 percent to the economic growth rate in the Kingdom and 1.6 percent in the Emirates.
The scale of the expected impact in these two economies is not surprising given their relative investment in artificial intelligence technology compared to the rest of the region, as both countries occupy a position among the top 50 countries in the world on the Global Innovation Index, issued by the International Intellectual Property Organization, since 2017 in terms of capacity.
On innovation and the outcomes of this innovation. The two countries also maintained their advanced positions (28 for the UAE and 31 for the Kingdom out of 62 countries) in the Global Artificial Intelligence Index for 2023 issued by Tortoise Media, while the Kingdom topped the index in terms of government strategies for artificial intelligence.
The Arab countries, led by the Gulf countries, consider artificial intelligence the “oil of the future” that can contribute significantly to restoring balance to their economies and diversifying their revenues.
NVIDIA
And here the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UAE are competing to purchase thousands of high-performance chips from NVIDIA, to join the global arms race for artificial intelligence. So far, the Kingdom has obtained, through King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, no less than three thousand of the world’s first “H100” chips designed for generative artificial intelligence, each of which costs $40,000.
The Arab countries, led by the Gulf countries, consider artificial intelligence the “oil of the future” that can contribute significantly to restoring balance to their economies. Robot or mind
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Strategic investments
As the Kingdom realizes the extent of the long-term restrictions imposed by an economic model based on hydrocarbon exports, it has emphasized since 2016, within the “Kingdom’s Vision 2030”, the diversification of its economy based on artificial intelligence.
To achieve this, the state set out to establish favorable legal frameworks to facilitate cloud computing and the development of artificial intelligence, for example, and it also stimulated global technology initiatives and entered into partnerships with leading international companies in this field.
Saudi Arabia pledged a government investment worth $20 billion with the aim of establishing 300 startup companies by the year 2030 (according to a report by The Economist in cooperation with Google in 2022 on artificial intelligence under the title “The Future of Artificial Intelligence in the Middle East and North Africa”), which are investments Huge compared to the ambitions of some major European countries such as Germany, which pledged only 5 billion euros.
National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence
In 2017, the UAE launched its National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2031, which is a major initiative within the country’s 2071 centennial goals that provides a road map for benefiting from artificial intelligence in the sectors of transportation, health, space, renewable energy, water, technology, environment, infrastructure, and education.
The Emirates Council for Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain was formed to implement Strategy objectives. It established the first Ministry of Artificial Intelligence in the world, and opened the first artificial intelligence university, the Mohammed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in 2019, which specializes in graduate programs related to artificial intelligence, to train 500 Emirati students in this field.
Robot or mind
The Emirate of Dubai has made great efforts in applying emerging technologies and artificial intelligence in future urban infrastructure, some of which are under implementation and others are still in the development stage, and include, among many other initiatives, a robotic police force, the space agency, and the Dubai Future Accelerators, a program in which The government works with the private sector to facilitate innovation.
Global leader
The UAE promises to become a global leader in the field of artificial intelligence, or the “new Silicon Valley,” to compete with global destinations trying to attract rare talent in the field of artificial intelligence and grow investment in it, such as Boston, London, Beijing, Toronto and other destinations, and to have its own distinctive brand with its well-established reputation. As a bold innovator, it will attract global companies to move their regional offices to the country, in a move that strengthens links in global value chains and allows global technology to be leveraged locally.
As part of its national cybersecurity strategy, the UAE enacted its first federal data protection law in 2021, consistent with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union, representing a major shift in data practices and the responsible use of artificial intelligence in the country. Digital Dubai (formerly Smart Dubai) has established an AI Ethics Advisory Board and published a set of AI ethics guidelines across the city’s ecosystem. Robot or mind
Integrating machine intelligence into sectors
Artificial intelligence promises to address a wide range of economic and social challenges facing the region, from volatile oil prices, to rapid urbanization, to water scarcity and food security. Governments in the region are taking it upon themselves to play the role of catalyst by providing significant financial resources, and setting plans, long-term goals and regulatory frameworks in order to achieve economic efficiencies that may add up to $7 billion to their annual budgets.
Economic sectors vary in their willingness to integrate artificial intelligence technologies into the core of their work, influenced by the size of the sector, the nature of its business, and the budgets allocated to accomplish this transformation in proportion to the added value expected from investing in this technology and the availability of the skills required to deal with it.
Retail and financial sectors
The retail and financial sectors, for example, have a broad database that qualifies them to benefit from artificial intelligence technology in analyzing the current and future requirements of their customers and providing more accurate, comprehensive and innovative services, as well as to detect fraud and secure online transactions.
The e-commerce sector in the Gulf countries is expected to grow to about $50 billion by the year 2025, as a result of this sector accumulating a large volume of customer data, which has been reinforced by the Covid-19 pandemic. Accenture lists among its expectations that artificial intelligence will enhance the annual added value of the banking industry. In Saudi Arabia and the UAE, by $17 billion and $37 billion, respectively, by the year 2035. PricewaterhouseCoopers also estimates that the financial sector will account for about 25 percent of artificial intelligence investments in the region.
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence has a fundamental role in achieving financial inclusion and providing economic opportunities to segments of society that were far from banking services, in addition to helping entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized companies join the economic system and grow their businesses, amid justified fears of biases that could result from the creditworthiness assessment mechanism. For this segment and ensuring its fairness, AI relies on existing data that can be tainted by those biases, as documented by the Stanford Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute (HAI).
Likewise, the entry of artificial intelligence into the health sector has enhanced opportunities for access to broader and more accurate medical insights that include patients and care providers, in addition to the possibility of progress in scientific research, especially epidemiology, treatments, and work to reduce the rate of chronic and serious diseases and their early detection.
Changing functional requirements, not job losses
There is no doubt that the increasing integration of artificial intelligence technologies will have a major impact on the labor market and its disruption if it is not accompanied by appropriate efforts to train at least 50 percent of the workforce, especially the younger and future generations, and provide them with the skills, knowledge, and flexibility necessary to keep pace with the urgent transformations that.
It will eventually impose itself, especially in services, public and private administration, industry, construction, trade, and logistics. However, a PricewaterhouseCoopers report indicated that artificial intelligence could generate 10 million new jobs in the Gulf region alone by 2030. 46 percent of workers in the region, compared to 31 percent globally, are optimistic about the ability of artificial intelligence to Improve their jobs instead of pessimistically canceling them.
United Nations Economic
A report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) agrees with these expectations, as it confirms the change in job requirements in the region and not the loss of jobs with artificial intelligence solutions, meaning that jobs may change qualitatively, not quantitatively.
Therefore, humans may collaborate with AI to improve their performance. Artificial intelligence, especially generative intelligence, requires a lot of human input to improve its performance. A paper released last May by Cornell University describes how these models may collapse in the absence of humans. Last June, McKinsey estimated in a report that generative artificial intelligence would automate 60 to 70 percent of employees’ workloads.
AI-specific education
Countries in the region still lack AI-specific education systems and the ability to pioneer developments in the technology sector, which hinders the development of talent in this field and attracting the most intelligent ones. Some governments in the region have taken pioneering steps to develop local talent, whether from the current workforce or among rising generations.
Including establishing specialized departments for artificial intelligence in universities, or entering into academic and training partnerships with local and international bodies to provide skills development programs in various related fields. With artificial intelligence. An example of this is King Saud University, which has partnered with the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones for executive-level AI training.
Robot or mind
The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) also launched the National Strategy for Data and Artificial Intelligence in 2021, which aims to attract foreign and local investments worth $20 billion in ten years and train 20,000 specialists in data and artificial intelligence.
In a broader context, countries in the region, especially Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, are focusing on applying artificial intelligence at the city level, by launching “smart city” projects, such as the “NEOM” city, which extends over an area of 26,500 square kilometers in Saudi Arabia.
With total investments amounting to 500 billion. Dollar, and is considered a center for research, development and innovation supported by artificial intelligence, where everything will be related to artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things.
Positives and negatives
Every technological revolution has its positives and negatives, and despite all the fears and warnings about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence that are coming from all sides, they will not stop this technology from growing or from astonishing us with limitless new discoveries, uses, and innovations, and it will find its way to become involved in our lives, our businesses, our hospitals, and our factories. And our university and our daily lives, whether we like it or not.
Robot or mind, Adapting this technology to human control will remain the biggest concern.
I’m Hassan Saeed, a Clinical Psychology graduate deeply engaged in the realms of WordPress, blogging, and technology. I enjoy merging my psychological background with the digital landscape. Let’s connect and explore these exciting intersections!
