Nine reflections on AI@UAE: Pioneering innovations in AI development and application

This week, I spent a few days discovering AI@UAE. I landed at Abu Dhabi airport on Saturday with the prevailing perception of a rich oil country investing heavily in the tech future, mainly hardware. I left on Thursday morning inspired by unique AI approaches and developments that seem to be quite intent on putting humans at the centre of the new AI era.

Before I list my reflections on AI, let me explain the context for my visit. Diplo was invited by the UAE’s Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy (AGDA) to deliver a 3-day leadership course on AI and diplomacy to a select group of officials across government departments.

On this occasion, I also delivered a public lecture on AI, geopolitics, and diplomacy, and signed a Memorandum of Understanding between AGDA and Diplo with Nickolay Mladenov, director of AGDA and pioneer in innovative diplomatic training. The MoU will strengthen collaborative ties that span nearly a decade. During the last day of my visit, I had a chance to reflect on the role of technology in the future of diplomacy during a lunch briefing hosted by Malta’s Ambassador to the UAE Amb. Maria Camilleri Calleja.

Both my colleagues Sorina Teleanu and Andrej Škrinjarić, and I were particularly grateful to have very proactive students attending the leadership training, including two young UAE astronauts. It was an exciting and inspiring visit in the spirit of learning by teaching. Here are 9 reflections on what I learned about AI@UAE:

1. Common sense

In the public media, we typically learn about the UAE’s heavy investment in Nvidia GPUs and server farms or glitzy events on AI. From a distance, one can see a mix of hype and PR approaches. However, during my visit, I was pleasantly surprised to discover a completely different ‘no hype’ approach to AI centred around a common sense question: how can AI be useful for society?

2. Clarity

In preparing for training in the UAE, our Diplo team analysed all major UAE strategies and policies on AI, including the UAE National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence 2031.

We were impressed by the clarity of language and sparse use of tech and AI terminology. It is not typical nowadays as AI documents tend to be more confusing than clarifying. When you have complex AI terminology written in plain language, it is not just a matter of linguistic style but an indicator of policy intention, to have AI understood and used by many.

3. Ownership

AI cannot be imposed or just created with much hardware. It requires ownership by people who use AI and generate new AI content. This simple but often overlooked truth is integrated into the UAE’s AI approach. For example, integrated in the country’s AI strategy is the notion that all ministries and government departments have ‘AI ambassadors’ whose task is to make AI ‘capillary’ and integrate it into the modus operandi of public institutions.

4. Leadership

The UAE’s AI strategy puts a lot of focus on capacity development training to the point that one of the objectives is to ‘ensure that 100% of senior leadership in government – Director-General, Ministerial and Senior-Ministerial levels – are trained and versed in AI’

This reflects a new way to lead AI developments, one in which AI technology is not a passive tool but directly interwoven with economic and social dynamics.

The UAE’s focus on AI awareness of societal leadership could inspire solutions for reducing the gap between high interest in AI governance and low basic understanding of AI technology in governments and international organisations worldwide (see cartoon below).  

5. Timing

The arrival of ChatGPT and the 2023 frenzy around it brought a lot of ‘knee-jerk’ AI governance initiatives worldwide. You have hundreds of pages of laws and policies worldwide whose usability is already questioned due to fast AI developments. The UAE chose a ‘wait and see’ approach to see how AI impacts society and then regulate AI if existing rules on commerce, data, security, and the market cannot apply to AI effectively. This approach is worth studying further.

6. Governance

AI governance triggered a lot of confusion relating, among other things, to long and often contradictory policy documents and regulations. The UAE is cutting through conceptual noise and connecting AI guidelines and potential future regulation with practical AI uses.

For instance, the AI strategy mentions the importance of ‘connecting abstract discussions to [AI] pilots’, while the Principles and Guidelines on AI Ethics state that ‘accountability for the outcomes of an AI system should not lie with the system itself’. This simple and common-sense approach focuses AI governance at the top of a pyramid where AI uses trigger economic, security, and other impacts on society.

7. Open-source

The UAE has a vibrant AI open-source scene, including development of two prominent AI models, Jais, the most advanced Arabic LLM, and Falcon. An enabling approach to open-source development has a far-reaching impact on economic inclusion, development, and bottom-up AI developments.

8. Geopolitics

On my way to Abu Dhabi, I read an article from the Foreign Affairs Journal on AI diplomacy that described challenges that the UAE and Saudi Arabia will face in the AI race, mainly between China and the United States. There will be more pressure from big powers around three critical geopolitical factors: access to submarine cables, as we may have two cable networks developed by China and the USA; access to data as a critical asset for AI; and use of AI models.

The UAE – similar to Saudi Arabia, Singapore, India, many African countries and, to a large extent, the European Union – will have to find its position in this bipolar AI geopolitics and, possibly, nurture a ‘third way in AI’.

9. Practice

By focusing on practical AI applications, the UAE makes AI tangible to citizens, businesses, and communities. In this spirit, as a sign of appreciations for our hosts, we developed the AI assistant on UAE’s AI and digital governance:

The AI journey continues…

I left Abu Dhabi inspired and impressed by a comprehensive, bottom-up, and smart approach to AI. I met many interesting people, from astronauts to ambassadors and students.

The next stop on my journey of discovering new centers of AI dynamism will be Riyadh in mid-December, where I will attend the Internet Governance Forum, meet with representatives of Prince Saud Al Faisal Institute for Diplomatic Studies, and learn about Saudi Arabia’s AI developments.

Stay tuned for more reflections from my AI diary!