ChatGPT founder’s visit gets Dubai talking about AI

Reuters/Lucy Nicholson

• Sam Altman’s PR blitz comes as regulators scrutinise safety of ChatGPT
• Calls for pause on AI experiments for development of safety protocols
• ChatGPT’s ability to write essays concerns education sector

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the company that created controversial artificial intelligence-powered chatbot ChatGPT, is heading to Dubai this summer as part of a world tour to meet with users, developers and policymakers.

Industry observers say the executive’s stop in the city is recognition of the Gulf’s digital advancement and anticipate that OpenAI will establish an office in the UAE.

Altman’s global PR blitz comes as regulators worldwide are scrutinising safety and privacy implications of ChatGPT after Italy became the first country to temporarily block the popular bot for failing to check the age of users, and the “absence of any legal basis that justifies the massive collection and storage of personal data”.

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Last month an online letter, signed by technology leaders including Elon Musk and Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak, called for a six-month “pause” on giant AI experiments, to allow regulators to develop safety protocols.

Rahul Daswani, a Dubai-based independent fintech expert, said he expects Altman’s discussions with UAE regulators to be around “how much and how fast” AI can transform economic development.

“Dubai is now being spoken in the same breath as London or Singapore as a technology and financial services centre,” he told AGBI. 

“The nation’s builders show clear intent to use these new tools to advance sustainable development goals in the UAE and to export to the larger Asian and Africa continents.

“I would also expect discussion around how data privacy can be maintained using a sovereign cloud, as the country will not want to provide keys to its gene pool and consumer and financial records to private entities.”

Carrington Malin, a consultant in the UAE focusing on emerging technologies, said Italy’s ban of ChatGPT is a “wake-up call” for OpenAI to engage with regulators globally “sooner rather than later”. 

“The more regulators feel ill informed or that laws are being ignored, the greater the risk of further bans,” he said.

“As with any new, little understood, technology, we’re only one big scandal away from a crackdown.” 

The Italian government also banned San Francisco startup Replika’s chatbot – marketed as “an AI companion who cares”– for posing risks to children and emotionally fragile people, and for storing personal data of Italian minors.

Additionally, Replika’s competitor, Chai, is under fire in Belgium after the widow of a man who died by suicide reportedly accused the app’s chatbot of encouraging the user to kill himself.

“Any groundbreaking technology needs about half a generation for us to figure out its implications,” Ashish Panjabi, COO at Jacky’s Business Solutions, said.

“The UAE is ahead of the curve with a sandboxing approach to regulation to continue evolving technology instead of restricting it.”

The UAE’s Regulations Lab was launched in 2019 to proactively anticipate and develop future legislation for emerging technologies.

A federal law was also issued authorising the UAE cabinet to grant temporary licences to test and vet innovations such as AI.

For now, however, rule-makers are struggling to play policy catch-up. 

ChatGPT’s ability to ace exams and write emails, contracts and essays, has sparked widespread concerns across sectors – education, in particular.

An internal paper by the American University of Ras Al Khaimah acknowledged this month that ChatGPT poses a serious threat to academic integrity but called it “futile” to prevent the use of it.

The university said current anti-plagiarism software “is not good at detecting” ChatGPT generated content and recommends educators guide students to employ AI responsibly and ethically.

This week Abu Dhabi University announced guidelines for the use of ChatGPT, advising students that AI-generated content may not be accurate and not to plagiarise texts.

In the corporate world, Panjabi said Jacky’s robotics software partners in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have already begun experimenting with use cases – and he expects the pace of development in the region to draw OpenAI to set up shop in the emirates. 

Altman said on Monday he is considering opening an office and expanding services in Japan after a meeting with Japan’s prime minister.

According to a UBS study, ChatGPT crossed 100 million monthly active users in January, only two months after launch, making it the fastest growing consumer app in history.

“We’re seeing major Silicon Valley investors making rounds in the region and recognising the importance of this emerging market, so it makes sense for OpenAI to support the ecosystem here,” Panjabi said.

In the midst of the global slowdown he also believed “another important factor is the amount of funding available given that our region is home to the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds”.

He added that e&’s recent $400 million acquisition of Careem, which was bought by Uber for $3.1 billion in 2020, is also a “loud testament” to homegrown innovation and the state of deal making in the Middle East.