‘AI will not eliminate the human role’

A round table discussion moderated by Dr Yousef Al Hasan tackled “Priorities of the Emirati Plans and Programmes for Establishment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Institutions,” stressing on the human role in monitoring and controlling AI as the technology will be give rise to new professions

Participants in the discussion included Dr Ahmad Bin Abdullah Humaid Belhoul Al Falasi, UAE Minister of State for Higher Education and Advanced Skills and Chairman of the UAE Space Agency, Sara Al Amiri, Minister of State for Advanced Sciences, Ohoud Al Shaheel, General Manager of Ajman Digital Government, Dr Saeed Khalfan Al Dhaheri, Chairman of Smart World, and Bashar Kilani, Regional Executive, Gulf Countries and Levant, IBM Middle East.

Al Falasi gave an example of the ATM invention, which left some bank employees worried about their jobs. However, later their fears were calmed when new roles emerged in the banking sector and the ATM has since grown to be a key invention. Al Amiri, indicated the importance of developing the AI system by having qualified programmers in various fields. “Each field has got its specialised programmers, as the programmer of the petrol and oil field differs from the one of any other field,” she said.

Al Shaheel indicated the importance of improving talents and taking advantage of AI progress society.

Dr Kilani mentioned that the AI, by 2030, will be contributing to about 16 to 20 percent of the local production. “I prefer to call it Augmented Intelligence instead of Artificial Intelligence,” he said.

During the discussion, Dr Al Falasi cited more successful models of applying AI in the UAE, as there are more than 26 initiatives undertaken by the government, which include the Abu Dhabi Police innovativation of eye glasses that can recognize the details of any person, Dubai Health Authority innovation of a special pharmacy which involves a robot that is able to discharge 12 medicines per minute without making a mistake, and Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Department innovation, with which it was able to reduce the cost of call center employees by Dhs500,000 through using auto call response by a robot.

Asking Dr Al Falasi about the efforts of the ministry in preparing students to join the world of AI, he said “We are implementing AI through schools’ curricula. We supply special laboratories in both government and private schools to enable them to learn the programming system.”

He referred the ‘Million Programmers Initiative’ by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President, Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, as one of the country’s efforts to encourage AI.

He noted an increase in the number of students pursuing science and engineering majors in universities, as the figure rose from 30 percent up to 41 percent, especially after a year of launching the Hope Mars Mission to explore space.

“Dealing with the new technology has been considered as a must for all of us, and we won’t be able to cancel the need of art and sciences, because we are all human beings at the end of the day! The interests and the needs used to be based on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), but they are currently based on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math),” he said.

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