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Artificial intelligence’s full potential may not be fully realized unless companies address both national security concerns and fostering a collaborative, open-source environment, industry leaders told Semafor Wednesday.
National security concerns around AI are “valid,” said Faheem Ahamed, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Abu Dhabi-based AI company G42, which has itself faced scrutiny in the US over its ties to China. However, beyond firms being compliant with local regulations, Ahamed said, AI governance “has to cut across both public and private spaces.”
To that end, G42 has worked with governments around the world as well as major tech firms based outside the Gulf, including Microsoft.
“These are going to be iterative processes that get advanced as more regulations get into play,” Ahamed said, adding that G42 was “working very closely with the World Economic Forum and the United Nations on both responsible AI and equitable AI.”
While AI’s true value may be in how it creates broader efficiency across many different industries, Jonathan Adashek, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at IBM, said, that potential may only be realized if the right environment — both in regulatory and industry terms — is established. The US, China, and the Gulf region are perhaps the three most important players in that space, he added.
“The best innovation is going to come from an open-sourced ecosystem,” Adashek said, adding that regulation needs to be tailored to that collaborative environment.
Open source technology will also be crucial if AI models are to reach underserved communities, Ahamed said, including non-English speakers. G42 has invested in building non-English large language models, including in Arabic.
“These [models] are just not about language, it’s about unlocking knowledge and technology for the entire global community,” he said.
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Some of the biggest innovations in artificial intelligence in recent years have come from startups, most notably OpenAI’s ChatGPT. However, venture capital funding is lagging, especially in terms of later stage funding that could help startups reach a point of maturity, Madiha Sattar, Managing Director and Growth Ventures Partner at BNY, a global financial services company, told Semafor.
“Later stage funding, that growth stage funding, still remains a little bit elusive,” Sattar said. While it may be the case that more acquisitions are taking place privately outside the US, “exit opportunities for startups do, I think, remain a challenge.”