Tarar for ‘acceptable to all’ AI regulatory framework

ISTANBUL: Federal Minister for Information, Broadcasting, National Heritage and Culture Attaullah Tarar on Friday made a passionate call at an international conference to work out a comprehensive and inclusive AI regulatory framework which is “acceptable to all”.

“As the world is progressing with the AI advancement, we must come up with a regulatory framework that upholds ethical standards and works for collective good of humanity which has common goals and objectives,” said the minister while addressing the Startcom Summit 2024.

“We must come together on common terms and make a regulatory framework which is acceptable to all,” he said while advocating encouraging the positive use of AI and discouraging the negative ones. “What I would like to achieve from AI…in the field of agri-tech, we would like to have more productivity and high yield crops through inducement of technology because we are a rice exporting country and we have the agriculture as a backbone of economy,” he said while underlining the need for AI advancement in education, skill development and fintech and healthtech sectors.”

“With regard to education and skill development, we would like to see the AI advancement in distance learning so that those students who do not have access to good universities could gain higher education,” he said, adding AI should be used in increasing the children enrolment in schools, and eradicating diseases like hepatitis and polio.

He stressed the need for using AI in combating the climate change, bolstering economy and curbing misinformation and disinformation. “We just need to make right policies and benefit our people,” he said while pointing out the biggest contemporary challenge in the form of misinformation and disinformation. He cited the World Economic Forum where most of the leaders called misinformation a greatest threat as it led to chaos and anarchy.

The minister said international fora could be used to deal with this challenge and an international agreement could be reached or a task-force could be established to deal with this challenge that eventually leads to economic instability and security crises that caused destruction beyond imagination. He expressed reservation over the censorship of issues related to Gaza, Kashmir and Lebanon on social media. “AI is being used negatively there, and there is a selective judgement in this regard,” he added. He regretted that he was unable to mention the name of martyr Burhan Wani on social media and use his picture due to what he called “selective judgement”. He said people should be told about humanitarian crises in Gaza, Kashmir and other countries. “In Pakistan, we have 111 million Internet users, about 45 per cent of our population. Then, we have 71 million social media users, about 29 per cent of our population and mobile phone users are about 188 million,” he said while highlighting the young population of Pakistan. “We have an opportunity and challenge in the form of youths of this country. So we are trying to impart IT skills to the youth so they can not only be efficient in IT skills and AI at home but also abroad.”

He mentioned three policies for digital advancement including the National Fiberization Policy which is aimed at providing Internet to the entire population in Pakistan. “Besides, we are moving towards 5G spectrum that is our next target, we hope to achieve that by mid next year.” In addition to that, he said the National Artificial Intelligence Policy was being worked out, which was in line with modern trends in the world and included the best ethical standards. “So to tackle misinformation, we have to develop large language models, we have to go to natural language processing. So LLMs and NLPs have to be developed in order to cope with this challenge of misinformation and disinformation the world over,” he stressed.

“As far as our national AI policy is concerned, a big part of it going to focus on ethical part, there is accuracy of historical data and accuracy of facts,” he said, highlighting the Fact-check Forum created by the Ministry of Information that actually verified certain facts which had not only AI as integral part but also human intervention that oversaw that AI module. “In addition to that, we are running two more programmes. We have the Directorate of Electronic Media and Publications which monitored opinions and narratives the world over and within our own country and came up with a strategic communication policy for the government. “We are using our own AI engine for that to improve our strategic communication,” he said, adding that the government of Pakistan had also established a counter-violent extremism cell.