Weekly newsletter article for ArabDigest.org, 15 June 2023
Summary: the digital transition is causing major changes across the world, from the adoption of AI chatbots like ChatGPT to major investments in IT infrastructure and fibre-optic cables. The Middle East is scrambling to keep up with the latest developments.
We thank Paul Cochrane for today’s newsletter. Paul is an independent journalist covering the Middle East and Africa. He is a regular Arab Digest contributor and writes for Middle East Eye, Money Laundering Bulletin, Fraud Intelligence and other specialised titles. He lived in Bilad Al Sham (Cyprus, Palestine and Lebanon) for 24 years, mainly in Beirut. Paul is also the co-director of a documentary on the political-economy of water in Lebanon, We Made Every Living Thing from Water.
The deployment of large language models (LLMs) like AI chatbots ChatGPT and Google Bard into the public realm over the past several months has caused much excitement as well as consternation and will have a major impact on MENA as elsewhere on the planet.
This next generation of LLMs are able to draw on massive amounts of data to answer a user’s question, create a text or image or write code. These AI chatbots are set to shake up the employment market in the region going forward with certain job sectors expected to become redundant while also creating jobs in IT and related services.
There has been much discussion globally about the future of research, academia and journalism given generative AI’s ability to write text. AI will be used to generate press releases and more ‘straight’ reporting, based on news and quotes of the day. This will suit government-backed and quasi-government linked Arab media outlets well, particularly if the AI adopts the superlatives so often used, such as His Highness or the ‘great leader’ style of fawning and unquestioning prose.
However, it can be argued that AI will not make real journalism – particularly investigative journalism – and in-depth research redundant despite the risks to journalists involved. A primary reason for this is that there is not nearly enough of it, thanks to the Middle East’s current bland media landscape, one that is not overly critical, operates with a high degree of self-censorship and largely avoids potentially controversial topics. Doing real journalism has long been fraught and has not gotten any easier in a region that is already considered the world’s most dangerous for journalists, with the situation classified as “very bad” in more than half of MENA countries, according to the Reporters Without Borders 2023 Index. Nonetheless journalists continue to risk imprisonment and in some cases their lives to do it.
Datasets and language
There is a need, and this will not disappear going forward, for solid, informative and constructively critical information. AI cannot do this as it is dependent on the information that is inputed and what it can draw on from open sources, such as the internet and online libraries. What is key is the quality of the data being fed into machines and how it is filtered. ChatGPT for instance paid Kenyan workers less than US$2 per hour to filter through texts to make the chatbot safer. Another consideration is what languages are part of the dataset, with 93% of ChatGPT-3’s dataset in English.
In terms of historical information, most of the data has been generated since the end of the Cold War, with a ballooning of data over the past decade as internet connectivity improved and more of life went online. Still, deep historical knowledge and memory will be a human advantage over machine learning. Humans can also challenge and shape narratives, be it what the establishment wants or from a more critical perspective.
In more authoritarian societies the narrative is closely monitored. Journalists that have fallen foul of the authorities for reporting inconvenient truths are well aware of this. As Jonathan Dagher, head of the Middle East desk at Reporters Without Borders, told The Media Line, journalists working in MENA “face significant dangers and difficulties, and the free flow of information remains strongly restricted and controlled by governments, militias, and armed groups.” On top of this is disinformation and fake content which needs to be challenged.
Independent reporting and research is therefore crucial to knowing what is happening on the ground in the region, be it drawing on anonymous sources, whistleblowers or simply describing the situation as it is. If this does not continue to happen, and more news and research is generated by AI, then there is a strong risk of an information glut in the MENA. This is bad news for knowing the political and economic realities in the region, as well as concerning for other growing challenges such as environmental degradation and climate change, areas that are already proving difficult to cover.
Arabic LLMs and the need for regulation in the MENA
The MENA region is not at the forefront of IT developments but certain GCC countries, particularly the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are forging ahead with digitalisation. Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council has launched its own AI chatbot, Falcon LLM, which is outperforming ChatGPT-3 but is reportedly not yet at the level of ChatGPT-4. Another LLM in Arabic is the Chinese developed Phoenix.
The regional development of an Arabic language LLM is significant, given that AI is dominated by English language chatbots and other LLMs primarily being, thus far, in other Latin languages and Chinese, Japanese and Korean. It is not clear if the lack of Arabic language websites and data is a hinderance to the further rollout of Arabic LLMs, with Arabic content only accounting for 1.1% of the top 10 million websites despite Arabic being the world’s sixth most spoken language.
One issue that seems to not have surfaced in the region so far is the regulation of AI. That said, governments worldwide are scrambling to try and regulate the technology, with an Artificial Intelligence Act working its way through the European Parliament.
Saudi’s digitalisation aspirations
It is Saudi Arabia that is outspending all others in MENA, investing billions of dollars in the hope of becoming the region’s digital hub, from data centres to metaverses to investing in new fibre optic cables. Global ICT players Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Meta (formerly Facebook) and Apple are all eager for a slice of the pie.
Microsoft is to invest heavily in a new cloud datacentre which, it is claimed, will generate US$24 billion in new revenues over the next four years, Google has entered into a joint-venture with state-owned oil giant Aramco, Oracle will invest US$1.5 billion to open cloud centres, and China’s Huawei is to invest some US$400 million. Meta is to open the region’s first Metaverse Academy in Riyadh, and Apple is to locate its first distribution hub in the Middle East near Riyadh.
The Saudi government is also backing major projects to digitalise the kingdom as part of its diversification efforts under Vision 2030, and to enable futuristic projects such as NEOM to become a ‘smart city’. Last year Riyadh earmarked US$6.4 billion in future technologies and entrepreneurship, including US$1 billion in the NEOM Tech & Digital Company to develop “the world’s first cognitive metaverse” known as XVRS.
A new fibre optic cable map is drawn
Riyadh is also working to redraw the fibre-optic cable map of the region, which for decades has been dominated by Egypt with Telecom Egypt having a monopoly due to its geographic positioning connecting Europe, the Middle East and Asia through the Red Sea.
Two new cables are to run through Saudi Arabia. The first is Google’s Blue Raman cable and the second is the more controversial Trans Europe Asia System (TEAS) cable, which is being quietly funded by US, UK, Israeli and Gulf investors. TEAS will run across the Mediterranean Sea to Israel and then, for the first time, terrestrially cross the kingdom and then go by sea to India. State-owned Saudi Telecom Company (STC) is also building a domestic cable, the Saudi Vision Cable, which will run along the Red Sea coast from Jeddah to Al Haql, near NEOM.
The kingdom’s moves are highly significant, as around 95% of the world’s internet traffic flows through fibre-optic cables, while an estimated 17 to 30% of all global internet connectivity runs through the Red Sea. The new cables will not undermine Egypt’s position – some 16 cables run across the country and some five more are underway – but having better resilience and alternative routes is being widely welcomed in the communications industry.
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