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 for encouraging the positive use of the AI, and discouraging the negative ones.

“What I would like to achieve from AI…in the field of agritech, we would like to have more productivity and high yield crops through inducement of technology because we are 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, fintech and healthtech sectors as well.

“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 these good universities could gain higher education,” he said, adding the AI should be used in increasing the children enrolment in school, and eradicating the diseases like hepatitis and polio.

He also stressed on the need of using the AI in combating the climate change, bolstering economy and curbing the misinformation and disinformation.

“We just need to make right kind of 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 the international fora could be used to deal with this challenge and an international agreement could be reached or task force could be established to deal with this challenge that eventually leads to economic instability, security crises that caused destruction beyond imagination.

He also expressed reservation over the censorship of the issue 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.

The minister regretted that he was unable to mention name of martyr Burhan Wani on Social media and use his picture due to what he called “selective judgement”.

The people should be told about the humanitarian crises in Gaza, Kashmir and other countries, he added.

“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 a challenge in the form of youth 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,” the minister noted.

He also mentioned three policies for digital advancement including the National Fiberization policy which is aimed at providing Internet to 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,” he added.

In addition to that, he said the National Artificial Intelligence policy is being worked out which is in line with modern trends in the world and includes 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 world over,” he stressed.Pakistan’s cuisine

“As far as our national AI policy is concerned, a big part of it going to focus on ethical part, so 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 verifies certain facts which has not only AI as integral part but also human intervention that oversees that AI module.

“In addition to that, we are running two more programmes. We have Directorate of Electronic Media and Publications which monitors the opinions and narratives world over and within our own country and comes up with the strategic communication policy for the government.”

“We are using our own AI engine for that to improve our strategic communication,” he remarked.

He said the government of Pakistan had also established a counter violent extremism cell.

“As far as fintech, agritech, healthtech and govtech areas are concerned, we are implementing our AI policy but we are first coming up with framework so that it is verified and based on accurate data to combat misinformation and disinformation,” the minister noted.

“We are fully committed to AI policy with best ethical standards,” he concluded.