As ChatGPT had made a splash all over the world since last winter, a new wave of artificial intelligence (AI) technological revolution is entering the spotlight.

Avant-garde technologies such as generative AI are changing the industry and regulatory landscape, and governments are under pressure to revisit their initial national AI strategies and capabilities.

During the ongoing Summer Davos 2023 (June 27-29) in north China's Tianjin, industrial experts and insiders shared their insights and explored the latest trends and technological advancements in AI, discussing the skills and strategies we need to be prepared for a potential AI revolution.

AI, especially generative AI, has the potential to boost very significant economic development, said Olaf Groth, professional faculty, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, during the "Keeping Up: AI Readiness Amid an AI Revolution" panel on Wednesday. 

But the professor pointed out it is still in the theory phase. To make it happen, he said, we have to build an ecosystem and create conditions that allow us to get access to this new groundbreaking foundational technology, while putting humans at the center of the development.

Ecosystem of AI

"AI is the fashion which can create value, but if you are talking about how to create a value for social development, how to convert those technologies to empower other industries, I think it's a very big challenge. The challenge is not about the technology only, it's more about the ecosystem," Liu Jiren, chairman of Neusoft Corporation, said at the same panel.

AI has been widely used in everyday life, but implementing it safely in major industries is still in process. 

In the case of healthcare transformation, for example, the data is the first challenge, including the data privacy, and diagnosis with AI should be 100 percent precise, at least to a real doctor's level, Liu added.

"ChatGPT can do anything for entertaining, but healthcare is very serious. How to convert a doctor into digital form is a tough task."

Yet, the technology is much more advanced than our ecosystem, which is not quite ready to fully use AI now, said Liu. 

Linking tech with national strategy

Talking about government's role with AI, Paula Ingabire, Rwanda's minister of information communication technology and innovation, said that "Rwanda sets itself to be a leading technology hub in the African continent."

She said her government is working to create an environment to nurture innovation, with capital and market, leading the way to encourage startups and tech companies to take part in the game.  

If we need to nurture new innovations and technologies, we will test and try out them, the minister said, adding that once the operational concept is proven successful, they will be expanded to other markets.

"The role of government is to put in place a regulation to promote innovations. A month ago, out government carried out a national AI policy to support AI in healthcare, agriculture and public service," she said, adding that "we are now using drone technology to deliver emergency assisting products."

In the next step, the government will make national data more available for industries, she added. 

Trust in AI

Asking "how do we make people to trust AI?" is the wrong question, Joanna Bryson, professor of ethics and technology, Hertie School pointed out during the discussion.

"We need to talk about the people who are building AI and people who regulate in AI. How do we make people feel secure about AI," she said.

Governments have important roles in helping people deal with changes, Byson said, and since we are in the information age without enough transparency, governments need to do things to benefit our people. With or without the technology, we need to keep the human on the center of the AI development, she added. 

Darko Matovski, chief executive officer of causaLens, echoed her by saying that 87 percent of AI projects never been implemented. "People just don't trust the algorithm."

He suggested the public should learn about AI first, and not be afraid of it. Regulation on AI is the right way forward, he added.

"I think individuals trust experts. So if I'm a patient, I trust my doctor, more than I trust the government or the regulation. If I'm a business decision maker, I may trust my domain expert, my analyst, to help me."

For AI to be trustworthy is to have the experts of the system that regularly fit their knowledge into the algorithm, he continued, adding that this has not been possible in the past, because we just rely on historical data and some data base. We completely neglect the intellect of the experts, he said. 

"I think we are very excited about the latest developments in AI, which downloads experts' knowledge into the algorithm, and then we have a best ball of the world, we have the best of data, we have the best human, and then we have trust in AI," said Matovski. 

"Because we know that the doctors have put their knowledge in, and the engineers have put their knowledge in, and I think that is the key to trust artificial intelligence."