RIYADH: Governance is crucial for artificial intelligence, said South Africa’s minister of science, technology, and innovation, Blade Nzimande, on Tuesday at the third Global AI Summit in Riyadh.
In a panel titled “Global Approach to Advance Ethical Governance of AI,” Nzimande announced South Africa’s collaboration with international partners to ensure full implementation of UNESCO’s recommendations on the governance of AI.
UNESCO released its first-ever global standard on AI ethics, titled “Recommendation on the Ethics of AI” in 2021, and earlier this year, launched the Global AI Ethics and Governance Observatory, which is a platform for knowledge, expert insights, and good practices on the ethics and governance of AI.
Nzimande said that UNESCO’s recommendations, if implemented, would help “address the racial and gender biases, which are often embedded in AI systems; safeguard against AI applications, which violates human rights; and ensure that AI development does not contribute to climate degradation.”
He added: “We need to ensure that the governance of AI is truly inclusive, and not the self-claimed prerogative of a select few. UNESCO offers us this inclusive, globally representative platform, where the voices of all matter, and South Africa commits our resources to support the recommendation’s implementation, in Africa and elsewhere.”
Other panelists included Laurence Ndong, minister of information and communication technologies for Gabon; Mohammed Ali Al-Qaed, chief executive of the Information and eGovernment Authority for the Kingdom of Bahrain; Makara Khov, secretary of state at the Cambodian Ministry of Post and Telecommunications; Ali Al-Shidhani, undersecretary for communications and information technology for the Sultanate of Oman; German State Secretary for the Federal Ministry of Digital and Transport Stefan Schnorr; Miroslav Trajanovic, state secretary at the Serbian Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation; and Aissatou Jeanne Ndiaye, Senegal’s director of information and communication technology.
During the session, each representative gave a run-down of their country’s commitment to ethical AI governance.
The rapid growth of AI has made its regulation a critical focus with the topic informing another panel, titled “Efforts in Shaping Global AI Governance from the Roadmap for Digital Cooperation to the Global Digital Compact.”
Panelists included Nighat Dad, executive director of the Digital Rights Foundation; Amandeep Singh Gill, the secretary-general’s envoy for technology at the UN; Lattifa Al-Abdulkarim, member of the Shura Council and the UN High-Level Advisory Body on AI; Nazneen Rajani, founder and CEO of Collinear AI; and Philip Thigo, Kenya’s special envoy on technology.
The panelists analyzed the “Interim Report: Governing AI for Humanity” by the UN secretary-general’s AI advisory body focusing on the role of the body in shaping global AI policy.
Rajani highlighted the issue of limited data availability for some countries or entities and the importance of data governance in line with UNESCO’s recommendation of member states developing data governance strategies.
“One way to bridge that gap is to think of data governance in a way where we can have a data trust; a marketplace of sharing anonymized, privacy preserving data,” she said.
The GAIN Summit, organized by the Saudi Data and AI Authority, is taking place from Sept. 10-12 at the King Abdulaziz International Conference Center, under the patronage of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
