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The National
18 hours ago
- Business
- The National
Age of AI: How technology is set to transform government and business in UAE and the world
The power of artificial intelligence is extraordinary. It can, among much else, help to diagnose diseases, make investments and create pictures, songs, novels and university essays. It is no wonder then that the UAE authorities are keen to harness its potential through a wide-scale roll-out. As reported last week, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, said that from January, the National Artificial Intelligence System will be an advisory member of the UAE Cabinet, the Ministerial Development Council and the boards of government firms and federal bodies. It is the latest move to promote AI. In 2017, the UAE became the first country in the world to have a Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, and it also has a national AI strategy and an AI university. New AI era Ashley Braganza, professor of organisational transformation at London's Brunel University, says governments globally 'are on the threshold' when it comes to adopting AI. 'Governments in many countries are talking about the use of AI to provide services for citizens,' he says. 'If we were to have this conversation as early as a year to 18 months from now, we'd be talking about AI in a wide range of the delivery of public sector services in different parts of the world.' Prof Braganza, who hosts The AI Adoption Podcast, says the technology will change how public sector employees interact, and how citizens engage with public services. It will, he says, 'be transformative'. 'If you are a civil servant, you can say: 'In this situation, with this kind of citizen that I'm dealing with, what should be the course of action, or what are the forms that need to be completed, or what information do we need to get from this individual?'' he says. 'It brings all this together and that, I think, is where the transformation is going to be seen. It will change working practices within the public sector.' Widespread adoption of AI by governments worldwide in the future should come as no surprise as it is 'very much a general-purpose technology', says Prof Mark Daley, the chief AI officer at Western University in Canada. 'It is a technology that allows some degree of cognitive offloading,' he says. 'Tasks that needed direct human supervision can, more and more as the models get better, be offloading to a machine assistant. 'It still has to be verified by a human, but it increases the capacity of each individual human to carry out work. The exact nature of that is totally dependent on the job function and the preferences of those individual humans.' It can make people 'significantly more productive and happier', he says, by carrying out 'intellectual drudgery', such as going through 500 emails to find any mention of a particular topic. Complementing not replacing For now, Prof Daley says, AI can carry out what might be seen as more mundane intellectual tasks, such as answering routine emails, but is not ready to completely replace many job functions. 'We're not quite there yet,' he says. 'The technology is remarkable and when it works it's fantastic, but it's still very brittle and there's still a lot of failure modes that require human oversight.' Using a word he coined, Prof Braganza sees AI as being likely to cause the 'gigification' of work, taking out the less demanding tasks within any particular job and leaving people to undertake the most difficult functions. 'What you end up with is people being employed for that last 20 to 30 per cent [of a job], where people are able to look at that very complicated issue and be able to deal with that,' he says. 'You will see over time a paring down of working roles, as opposed to AI coming in and the entire organisation's workforce collapsing.' The technology is advancing rapidly and Prof Daley says that it is not hard to imagine a future where agentic AI – a form of the technology where AI 'agents' carry out functions independently – does eventually completely take over many human roles. AI is not just a technology for governments in high-income nations: it allows advances in developing countries too. A parallel can be drawn, Prof Daley says, with the way that African nations rapidly increased mobile phone penetration, 'leapfrogging' the widespread dependence on landlines. 'We're probably going to see the same thing play out here,' he says. 'Nimble, fast-moving developing countries are going to say, 'Let's just integrate AI into our processes as we are evolving them.'' Safeguards in place With AI – as with people – there are concerns about bias, and it may not even be obvious that such biases are lurking within algorithms, Prof Braganza says. 'If you're talking about AI being used by police, health, social security, childcare – in those situations, some of those decisions can have very deep, very wide effects if they go wrong,' he says. Prof Braganza notes that a human caseworker or call centre employee may deal with, say, a few dozen customers in a day – but over the same time period, an AI model may adjudicate in thousands of cases. 'Somebody applying for a loan, for example, if that algorithm is biased, then 10,000 applications in the last one hour may well have been affected,' he says. Yet Prof Daley says that as the technology becomes more sophisticated, bias can be removed. 'With the frontier AI we have right now, with the reasoning models … you can actually explain in English what criteria you're looking for, what biases it should watch for, and you can construct a system that is essentially less biased than any human would be,' he said. 'You can require it to explicitly state how it is making decisions against all these possible sources of bias,' he says. 'There's a possibility to use these models in a way that actually increases procedural fairness, but you have to be really mindful about how you're using them.' For all the concerns relating to AI in government or business, the technology's adoption is going to continue. Its use is likely to become existential for companies. 'If a productivity enhancer is invented and you decline to adopt it, you as a firm or an individual will be outcompeted by those who do adopt it. There seems little question to me [that] AI is a productivity enhancer across a broad range of domains,' Prof Daley says.
Irish Times
a day ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
‘Urgent need' to implement provisions of Official Languages Act
The Irish language community's 'lack of confidence' in the availability of public services in Irish demonstrates the 'urgent need' to implement provisions of the Official Languages Act, An Coimisinéir Teanga has said. Speaking on the publication of his office's annual report for 2024, Séamas Ó Concheanainn said the absence of a mandatory obligation for Government departments and local authorities to provide fundamental services such as passport, public services card or driving licence applications in Irish is 'a significant concern'. The provision of such services for the Irish speaking community is being 'significantly' hindered by the absence of a formal obligation, Mr Ó Concheanainn said. Another factor cited by the Coimisinéir Teanga is a shortage of qualified staff within public bodies who are proficient in Irish. READ MORE The report cites a 'clear and urgent need' for the full implementation of the new language standards system and the 20 per cent provision of recruits with Irish, elements which were described by the Coimisinéir Teanga as 'the two cornerstones' of the State's first national plan for the provision of Irish language services published last October. Mr Ó Concheanainn, whose role is to monitor compliance by the State and its agencies with language legislation, said a formal investigation carried out by his office into the Department of Foreign Affairs found it had 'insufficient staff' available to provide a telephone service in Irish to members of the public who wished to make a passport application through Irish. The office of the Coimisinéir Teanga received a total of 594 complaints from the public in 2024. While this represents a 6.5 per cent drop on the number received in 2023, the report says the nature of the complaints reflects 'extensive gaps' in current public services in Irish. These include a lack of online services in Irish, a lack of public service infrastructure in Gaeltacht areas, the absence of official forms in Irish, and the failure of State bodies to use the correct Irish form of names and surnames. While welcoming last October's publication of the Government's six-year National Plan for Irish Language Public Services as 'commendable', Mr Ó Concheanainn warned 'the significant improvement' that is required will not be achieved 'without a statutory obligation' on public bodies to provide 'the most basic of public services' such as passport and driving licence applications, in Irish. Mr Ó Concheanainn also said 'strategic workforce planning' that incorporates staff with proficiency in Irish will be necessary on a national basis to meet the State's target of 20 per cent of public service recruits being proficient in Irish by 2030. Highlighting the 'positive impact' that implementation of language legislation has had on strengthening language rights, Mr Ó Concheanainn said the prominence of Irish language across diverse media has 'significantly increased'. Section 10A of the Languages Act requires that at least 20 per cent of advertising placed by all public bodies in any given year is in Irish and that at least 5 per cent of their annual advertising budget is spent on Irish language media. Figures released last year by An Coimisinéir Teanga show that in 2023, public bodies placed advertising to the value of €3.8m on Irish-language media. Irish language advertising to the value of €10.4m was also placed on English-language media as a result of this provision. Publication of the 2024 report was welcomed by Minister for the Gaeltacht Dara Calleary. He said it demonstrates the 'significant progress' that has been made to date. While the report 'identifies some gaps in the provision of Irish language public services', Mr Calleary said he was encouraged that much of the work under way by his department will directly address most of these.
Free Malaysia Today
a day ago
- Business
- Free Malaysia Today
Why now? Understanding the urgency behind Malaysia's SST expansion
As Malaysia approaches July 1, the effective date for the expanded Sales and Service Tax (SST) framework, the key question many are asking is: Why is this fiscal adjustment happening now? The government's decision to implement changes at this juncture is rooted in a pressing need to fortify the nation's financial health and ensure a stable path forward amid evolving economic realities. This move, initially outlined in Budget 2025 on Oct 18 last year, comes at a critical time for Malaysia's public finances. The nation currently operates with one of the lowest tax bases in the region, with a tax-to-GDP ratio of only 11.7%. Meanwhile, the average for the Asia-Pacific region stands at 19.3%. This means a significantly smaller slice of the country's economic output translates into government revenue compared to its regional peers. Broadening the tax base is now essential to resolve this long-standing structural challenge and secure Malaysia's fiscal sustainability. However, the urgency to boost government revenue goes beyond merely balancing the books—the immediate need for increased government revenue is urgent. Increased revenue is crucial for funding vital public services, including healthcare and education, and for continuing direct cash assistance programmes, like Sumbangan Asas Rahmah (SARA), which provides essential support to over 5.4 million households. The finance ministry has said that it anticipates SST enhancements to generate an additional RM5 billion in revenue for the latter half of 2025, contributing to an annual projection of around RM10 billion. Furthermore, this expansion is a cornerstone of Malaysia's ongoing fiscal consolidation efforts. The additional revenue generated is critical for helping the nation achieve its fiscal deficit target of 3.8% of GDP for 2025, with an aim to further reduce it to 3.0% by 2026 amid global trade frictions and geopolitical volatility. Acting now allows the government to proactively manage its debt and ensure a more resilient economy for an increasingly uncertain future. While the government acknowledges concerns from businesses and consumer groups regarding the timing and potential impact, it has emphasised that the SST expansion is a 'more progressive and balanced approach' compared to a reintroduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). According to treasury secretary-general Johan Merican: 'When GST was in place, the RM500,000 income threshold was applied broadly, and many companies registered. Now, the same threshold applies but with exceptions.' For example, the threshold for construction companies and clinics is set at RM1.5 million to reduce the burden on small contractors and clinics. So, fewer businesses are affected compared to the GST days. The decision to proceed with SST now, rather than GST, reflects a deliberate choice to widen the revenue base without disproportionately impacting everyday Malaysians on essential goods and services, which largely remain exempt or zero-rated. It is also worth noting that the measure, initially slated to begin on May 1, has already been delayed by two months to July 1, following appeals from manufacturers. This initial deferral demonstrates the government's responsiveness to industry concerns, but the underlying fiscal imperatives necessitate moving forward now. To further ease the transition, a grace period for penalties until Dec 31 this year has been announced, providing businesses with additional time to adapt without immediate legal repercussions. As Johan said: 'The goal is a fair, progressive tax system—where those who can afford more contribute more.' And, as is the case with all progress, the best time to start is now. The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.
South China Morning Post
2 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Civil servants in Hong Kong have to move with the times
Hong Kong's civil service has, with justification, been described by the government as the backbone of the administration, helping develop and execute policies while providing public services. But the need for the more than 173,000 civil servants to perform well and provide good value for money is as important now as it has ever been, as the city faces new challenges and a big budget deficit. Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu has championed a 'result-oriented' approach for the government and is determined civil servants will also meet high standards. Lee recently revealed plans to introduce a new accountability system for the civil service to complement the existing one for principal officials. There are, as yet, few details. But he said underperforming senior bureaucrats may face a pay freeze or other punitive measures. The aim is to improve leadership and policy implementation. It is a welcome development. Hong Kong's civil servants had their pay frozen for a year in April as part of measures to tackle the deficit, but rises for individuals are still possible within the pay bands. Civil servants are well paid and enjoy job security and generous fringe benefits. Their pay structure is rigid and outdated. There is much room for reform. Public servants already undergo annual appraisals to identify outstanding and underperforming individuals. Those falling short are given support to help them improve. There is a mechanism for the retirement of persistent underperformers. But a more rigorous and sophisticated system is needed to enhance accountability and ensure standards are raised. The new arrangements must be carefully structured, with clear objectives, to ensure they are transparent and fair. The system should include assessment of much-needed collaboration between different branches of the service as well as performance within departments. Lee has highlighted the need for reform of the bureaucracy in his policy addresses. Steps taken include amending the civil service code and introducing new awards for high performers. The civil service needs to modernise to improve efficiency, embrace new technology, and better meet the needs of the community. The new accountability system will help, but the process of reform must continue.
Free Malaysia Today
2 days ago
- Business
- Free Malaysia Today
Study shows Reform on track to become UK's biggest party in parliament
Reform has been riding high in the polls amid disaffection over the state of the UK's public services. (EPA Images pic) LONDON : Nigel Farage's populist Reform UK would be the biggest party in parliament if the country held a general election today, according to a nationwide projection, underlining the political danger to prime minister Keir Starmer. Reform would win 271 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, with Starmer's governing Labour party second on 178, polling firm YouGov said today. That would leave a hung parliament in which no party could govern alone. The Tories, who already posted their worst ever general election result last year when they won 121 seats, would plumb new depths on just 46, while the Liberal Democrats would leapfrog them, winning 81 seats. Following Labour's landslide victory last year, another general election is not expected until 2029. The poll highlights major changes in the UK's electoral landscape, as the country appears poised to move beyond the Tory-Labour duopoly that's dominated politics for a century. Amid disaffection over the state of the country's public services, Farage's right-wing outfit – which won just five seats last year – has been riding high in the polls. The Reform leader has warned he's coming for Labour after his party made huge gains in a set of local elections earlier this year. Reform has emulated America's department of government efficiency – DOGE – and pledged to slash waste in UK local councils. Former chairman Zia Yusuf told Bloomberg's In The City podcast this week that Britain is being held back by Labour's economic policies. Fragmentation The YouGov survey also suggested Labour cabinet ministers including deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, home secretary Yvette Cooper, business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, defence secretary John Healey and education secretary Bridget Phillipson would lose their seats if a general election was held now. Former foreign secretary James Cleverly, of the Conservatives, would lose his seat to Reform, YouGov said. Labour and the Tories combined would win just 41% of votes, according to YouGov. That's half the level of their joint share as recently as 2017. 'That a clear majority would now vote for someone other than the two established main parties of British politics is a striking marker of just how far the fragmentation of the voting public has gone over the past decade,' YouGov said. YouGov's first MRP since the 2024 election shows a hung parliament with Reform UK as the largest party and the Tories pushed into fourth place. YouGov's poll also sees the Scottish National Party, the Greens and Plaid Cymru advance. The pollster used so-called Multilevel Regression and Post-stratification modelling, which aims to give a more detailed electoral prediction than standard polling – its first such survey since last year's July 4 vote.
