Humans will decide if AI will be good or bad, says former Google X executive
● Saudi cities are being made smarter, cleaner, and greener with help of data
● Acceptance of AI from pilots and people will bring huge benefits to the aviation industry
DeepFest, the premier meeting place for the global Artificial Intelligence (AI) ecosystem, moved the needle on the positives and pitfalls of how AI will impact everything from aviation and urban landscapes to humanity on its penultimate day at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Centre in Malham.
Co-located with LEAP, the world’s most-attended tech event, and powered by the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA), the second edition of DeepFest features 150-plus leading AI experts, 120 global AI companies, and upwards of 20,000 attendees.
Humanity Will Decide if AI is Good or Bad
Addressing the DeepMedia Stage, Mo Gawdat, former chief business officer at Google X and author of Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy, proposed the view that humanity – rather than the technology – will determine whether AI is good or evil and if it will save or destroy the world.
In a session titled AI Happiness and the Future of Humanity, Gawdat analysed scenarios in which AI could be used to the detriment of society, predicting it will ultimately be people that decide the technology’s lasting impact. When asked if AI can make the world happy, Gawdat said: “If we teach the technology to kill and steal and make money for a small group, AI will be our doom. If we teach it for things like climate change, curing cancer, and making us happier, it will make humanity better.
“Humans are the teachers of AI,” he continued. “Take the algorithms on your social media as an example: They are taught to follow your preferences and that’s what you see in your feeds. If I see content I don’t want, I dislike it or swipe it away. I’m teaching AI to give me what I want.”
Gawdat added that even without the invention of AI, the capitalist system has trained us to have overinflated expectations. But we shouldn’t make the same mistake with the technology.
“Take beauty, which has been overinflated since the invention of magazines. Whether the swimsuit model on the cover, or the man with the six-pack., our expectations are looking like that makes us happy, but does it?” he said. “We have the opportunity with AI to not overinflate expectations. In my view we should be treating AI and others like we want to be treated. Instead of bashing people on Twitter [X] for example, treat people how you would want to be treated and we’ll all be happier.”
From Potholes to Plants, ‘Smart C’ Driving Saudi Towards Cleaner, Greener, Safer Cities
Whether detecting potholes or monitoring the greening progress of Riyadh, Dr. Sattam Alsubaie, CEO of the Smart City Centre of Excellence at the SDAIA, explained how the country’s National Smart C Platform is helping improve the urban landscape of the Kingdom’s metropoles and ensuring the capital remains on track to meet its target of raising its green coverage to nine per cent by 2030.
Providing a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach to enhancing safety and cleanliness in major cities, Smart C uses dashcams installed in 22 cars to scan all of Riyadh’s roads on a weekly basis, with AI highlighting everything from potholes and accumulation of sand to “visual pollutions” such as overflowing garbage and old, unsightly billboards. It also operates – on a smaller scale, for now – in other major cities including Jeddah, Madinah, and Damman.
In 2020, Riyadh had just one per cent green coverage, but the Kingdom’s 2030 Vision intends to see that rise to nine per cent within the next six years. As well as plans to plant seven million trees, the city will also benefit from Smart C’s use of data whereby progress can be followed through satellite imagery on a quarterly or half-yearly basis, highlighting areas that are both blossoming or in need of attention.
“In a nutshell, Smart C supports all the other government agencies working in the field: To optimise operations, help city planners better understand certain phenomenon that happen in our cities, and aid city managers and strategists monitoring KPIs across different areas,” said Dr Alsubaie.
Acceptance Will Allow AI to Help Aviation Sector Soar
With global populations increasing, air travel demands growing, and space exploration becoming more accessible, Greg Ombach, Senior Vice President and Head of Disruptive Research & Technology at Airbus, outlined how AI can meet many of the challenges facing modern aviation.
In his keynote address on the DeepFest stage titled ‘Pioneering Net Zero in Aerospace by 2050: Impact of AI and Big Data,’ Ombach told delegates that over the next 20 years there will be 46,000 aircraft flying regularly in the world’s skies. And with 600,000 pilots required to service those demands, AI can play a leading role in enhancing operational efficiency and cost control.
“If you think of an A350 aircraft flying today, one aircraft generates 2.5 terabytes of data every day. We collect that data to form the basis for this digital revolution in aviation,” said Ombach.
Ombach said AI can be used to increase safety, improve customer service, and optimise flight plans and trajectories. The technology will be able to understand and interact with air traffic control and weather systems. It will bring operational efficiency and predict air traffic control demand. However, he cautioned the technology will work only if it is welcomed by aviation professionals and air travellers alike.
“It is about acceptance. From the pilots flying those aircraft to the people like us sitting in our sets on the plane,” he said, while showing a video of an autonomous take off test in which the pilot was reluctant to cease control of the joystick. “We have to accept what the technology can do to make our lives easier.”
Michael Champion is CEO of Tahaluf, which co-organises LEAP alongside Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and is a strategic joint venture between Informa PLC, the Events Investment Fund (EIF), and the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones (SAFCSP), praised the potential of DeepFest to chart a future for transformative AI.
“For the third consecutive day the second edition of DeepFest has delivered dynamic discussion and dissection of the true impact AI can and will have on the way we live and work,” said Champion. “We have heard the world’s AI advocates describe how we are just at the beginning of this technological journey and DeepFest will continue to evolve as a primary platform to chart the power and potential pitfalls of generative intelligence, explore best practices, and deliver results. With meaningful change at its core, DeepFest has the perfect home in Saudi Arabia.”