‘Even ChatGPT is biased’: UAE officials stress how technology needs to be inclusive

Data is the new currency, and harnessing it could mean making or breaking a nation. This was the key takeaway during the Global Data Forum the day before the World Government Summit (WGS) on Sunday.

“Data has been a major influence on the decisions that are taken by our leaders, whether it is in the government or private sector. These are called creative decisions,” said Abdulla Lootah, Deputy Minister of Cabinet Affairs for Competitiveness and Experience Exchange, during a session titled ‘The Power of Data in Decision-making’ at WGS.

He elaborated how these creative decisions were at the heart of the country’s fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. “Data is the basis of information,” he said. “Information is the basis of knowledge, knowledge is the basis of wisdom, and wisdom is the basis of a successful nation.”

Meanwhile, Sarah Al Amiri, Minister of State for Public Education and Advanced Technology, stressed the importance of the right way to collect data. “The question you need to address becomes very important,” she said. “Understanding where you want to head and what data needs to be collected, how it needs to be stored, what technologies are required to bring it on board, the level of granularity that is needed … are necessary to create transformative changes.”

Al Amiri also spoke about how all technology has some kind of bias. “We see that today even the much-lauded ChatGPT is a biased system. It does have constructs that have been put into it that are considered biased and not all-inclusive,” she said.

She went on to stress the importance of inclusivity in data. “Technology needs to be inclusive and realising the potential of data needs to be inclusive,” she said. “Having access to data needs to be inclusive. The processes that needs to go towards transformation need to be inclusive.”

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