Goal of AI should be to improve quality of life, says UAE minister

Abu Dhabi summit hears how there is a 'narrow window of opportunity' to build trust on AI

Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote work Applications speaking at the Abu Dhabi Global AI Summit in Abu Dhabi. Ruel Pableo for The National

Empowering people with technology and using artificial intelligence as a tool to serve society should be at the core of AI policy, was the UAE’s message at a global AI summit.

A focus on how AI improves the quality of life would help build trust instead of limiting it to merely measuring productivity – this was the consensus at the Abu Dhabi Global AI Summit on Sunday.

“Around the world, the conversation has always been AI for productivity improvement, our message to the word is AI for quality of life improvement,” Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications told a conference of heads of state, ministers, policy makers and AI pioneers in the capital.

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“If you focus on improving people’s quality of life, productivity becomes a by-product. The only way to actually build trust is if people understand that this is a tool that is going to be used to serve.”

He spoke of the UAE’s goal to be at the frontier of new technology, its capacity to attract talent and the crucial element of trust that convinced people to live and work in the country.

“We understood that as a country, the only way we would be able to achieve scale is if we merge man and machine and if we actually get more out of every single individual that lives in this country by empowering them with technology,” he said.

“For the UAE, it’s not about saving money when it comes to AI but to ensure that people here stay and spend money, build families, live for the long term and that can only be achieved with a focus on quality of life."

Brad Smith, Microsoft vice chairman and president, speaks at the summit. Ruel Pableo for The National

AI access

The UAE and Singapore were named as leading in AI adoption, in a recent report from Microsoft’s AI Economy Institute that cited investments in digital infrastructure and education as the main factors.

The UAE last month announced it would provide teachers with AI training to prepare pupils for the future workplace. This was central to a broader commitment made last year by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, that the country aimed to train one million people in AI by 2027.

With the appointment of chief AI executives across UAE ministries, policies such as the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2031 and the Dubai Universal Blueprint for AI, the country has positioned itself as a global hub for AI.

The Abu Dhabi conference was hosted by the Responsible AI Future Foundation, G42, Microsoft and Eurasia Group’s GZero Media with a focus on AI serving the Global South and Africa, improving and promoting responsible use.

Leaving behind 700 million people worldwide without access to energy and the internet connectivity divide were also addressed.

Doug Burgum, the US Secretary of Interior, highlighted reliable and affordable energy as a basic requirement that tied into AI.

“When populations have access to power, everything gets better, health get better, life expectancy increases, access to services are made available so it should be a priority of the planet,” he said. “We have an opportunity to lift everybody up.”

He spoke of using AI to tutor children in areas with limited teaching staff to applying artificial intelligence to improve efficiency of power grids.

“AI can help whether it's medicine, health care, defence, it can help in ways that we can't even imagine,” Mr Burgum he said. “So it becomes imperative to have a convergence, if we want to lift everybody up as opposed to a divergence and have the countries that can afford to produce more energy, benefit from AI than those that don't.”

Bridge the gap

Brad Smith, Microsoft vice chairman and president, picked up on the UAE minister’s quality of life theme when he spoke of the need to work together to bridge the divide.

“There is a real risk that AI becomes the latest technology that the haves have more of and the have-nots have no access to at all,” he said.

“If we are going to do better over the next century and bring technology to everyone, we're going to have to do things differently than we have in the past. We need to ensure that the countries and people of the Global South have not only a place where they can learn, but where their voices are heard, where they can help shape the development and deployment of this technology.”

Amandeep Singh Gill, the UN under-secretary general and special envoy for digital and emerging technologies, spoke of the “narrow window of opportunity” to put in place governance to maximise AI benefits when it reaches poorer nations.

He touched on the UN’s role in connecting rich and poor countries in different stages of digital infrastructure and including the perspectives of not just engineers but tapping talent of agriculture experts and public health specialists.

“The most worrying is reinforcement of inequalities, the wealth divide, the access divide and that is not just across countries, it’s within societies as well,” he said, adding it was vital to reskill people so they could access new opportunities.

“The answer is wise governance, wise adoption, trust, and being better prepared.”