DUBAI: Earlier this year, advisory firm KPMG announced a new initiative to deploy generative artificial intelligence investments and a series of alliances to empower its employees, offer innovative solutions to clients and how it Works redefined.
The company is not alone in doing so. Many others have adopted AI, especially generative AI, both internally and externally. For example, Deloitte launched its AI Institute in Riyadh last month, while the STEP conference in February used ChatGPT to write copy for its outdoor ads.
Simply put, generative AI is a subset of AI “that can produce new and original content,” Fadi Kasatli, partner and head of digital and innovation at KPMG, told Arab News.
Content can include anything from text and images to music and even software code.
“While traditional AI focuses on classifying or labeling existing data, generative AI pushes the boundaries by producing new outputs,” Kasatly said.
ChatGPT, in particular, brought generative AI into the limelight to a mass audience, giving rise to many other chatbots such as Google̵7;s Bard, Microsoft’s Bing, and Snapchat’s My AI.
The generative AI hype went beyond ChatGPT, however, with the rise of other models such as “GPT-4, PALM2, Stable Diffusion, and DAL-E, with applications such as ChatGPT and Bard taking advantage of these models to achieve meaningful results.” ,” Kasatly said.
Microsoft has already integrated its AI assistant feature Co-Pilot into GitHub, Office 365, Teams and Windows, and software company Salesforce has launched Einstein GPT, which it calls the world’s first generative AI customer relationship management technology. describes as, which delivers AI-generated content. Every sales, service, marketing, commerce and IT interaction.
“Generative AI in business applications can drive transformative results, driving innovation, efficiency and growth in the sector,” Kasatly said.
This was particularly evident in the UAE, “where the National AI Strategy 2031 aims to accelerate the adoption of emerging AI technologies and attract and nurture talent to develop solutions to complex problems using AI.”
Similarly, Saudi Arabia launched its National Strategy for Data and Artificial Intelligence in October 2020, which aims to make the Kingdom a global leader in the field as it seeks to attract $20 billion in foreign and local investment by 2030.
Kingdom aims to transform its workforce by training and developing a pool of 20,000 AI and data experts.
“Governments in the region have recognized the potential of these emerging technologies and are taking proactive steps to incorporate them into their economies and societies,” said Patrick Patterson, CEO of the Level Agency.
“For example, the UAE, which is projected to benefit the most from AI – accounting for close to 14 percent of its GDP by 2030 – has set up a National Institute for the Digital Economy, AI and Remote Working Systems to oversee this digital transformation. Has also appointed Minister of State,” he told Arab News.
Like any new technology, the development of generative AI has raised concerns over its potential to replace humans.
“Looking back at the history of transformative technologies such as the spreadsheet, the graphical user interface, the Internet, and the smartphone, we see a pattern where these technologies have not displaced humans, but have made tasks more efficient, and we have more complex Freed up to focus on tasks. leading to increased productivity and innovation,” said Casatli, who predicts a similar pattern with generative AI.
That said, the job market is likely to change in the future with the creation of new industries, businesses and jobs.
But the change will also result in job losses, especially in the short term, in areas such as customer service, translation and interpretation, data entry and accounting, Patterson warned.
“In fact, according to some estimates, 45 percent of current jobs in the Middle East could potentially be automated by 2030.
“(But) it is important to remember that every technological revolution, while displacing old jobs, also creates new roles that we may not have even imagined yet,” he said.
As AI systems become more prevalent, the job market will see an increase in demand for data scientists and other roles related to their development and maintenance, with the Middle East expected to generate approximately $366.6 billion in AI-related wage income, Patterson said. Is. roles.
Still, the development of AI is not without risk.
“Bias is an inherent risk in AI systems because they learn from existing data. So if there are biases in the training data, these biases can be reflected in the outputs generated by AI algorithms,” Kasatly said.
“Another pitfall is hallucination, which occurs when generative AI produces outputs that are completely fabricated and lack factual or logical basis.”
In April, ChatGPT was found to be citing articles in The Guardian that never existed. The British paper was contacted separately by a student and a researcher asking about articles they had not found during their research using ChatGPT.
Kasatly said the reasons for this “are not yet fully understood, but advances in equipment and techniques are expected to reduce this phenomenon over time.”
Another area of concern is data privacy.
“Ensuring enterprise-grade security and data privacy measures is essential when deploying generative AI systems,” he added.
“When using publicly available generative AI applications such as ChatGPT or Bard for content creation, there is also a risk of generated text or images not complying with applicable IP or copyright laws and it is important to navigate these pitfalls and ensure compliance. requires human intervention or supervision.”
Finally, like any powerful technology, generative AI was susceptible to intentional misuse, Kasatly said.
Phishing, a technique used by online hackers to obtain sensitive data such as passwords or banking information, has been a major concern for chief information security officers in Saudi Arabia, with 30 percent identifying such attacks within their organizations. The most important threat to Proofpoint’s 2022 Voice of the CISO report.
One concern was the use of generative AI to craft “highly credible phishing attacks,” Proofpoint’s regional director for the Middle East and Africa, Emile Abu Saleh, told Arab News.
“The rapid development of generative AI techniques is a challenge to traditional security protections, and the ability of AI models to generate realistic content and mimic trusted sources can undermine even the strongest security measures,” he said.
The rise of deepfakes, misinformation and misleading content was a challenge even before the popularity of generative AI.
The New York Times Chairman Arthur Gregg Sulzberger said during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting earlier this year that ChatGPT would exacerbate the global problem of misinformation.
“A lot of this won’t be information that is intended to mislead, but based on everything I’ve read, I suspect we’re going to be producing massive amounts of material, none of which not specifically verified (and) whose origins are not particularly clear,” he said.
Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a speech in Washington last month on how to best regulate AI that his biggest concern about AI was deepfakes.
He called for steps to be taken to ensure that people knew when an image or video clip was real and when it was generated by AI.
Casatli said that generative AI can help publishers generate large amounts of content, increase user engagement through personalized experiences, and streamline operations with automation.
But, he also warned publishers about concerns about “upholding the authenticity of content and journalistic integrity,” advising them to “ensure that AI-generated content is disclosed in order to uphold journalistic standards.” appropriately labeled.”