A new initiative announced on Wednesday will empower the UAE workforce to keep pace with developments in artificial intelligence (AI). The initiative aims to reskill, retool, and retire UAE employees.

Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications, made the announcement during the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Annual Meeting of the Global Future Councils 2023.

“If someone is going to be augmented by AI, we want to retool them to actually be able to use these tools, and if someone is a year or two from retirement and has no interest in retooling, they have the option of retiring early," the minister explained.

If people are part of a job class that is going to be completely displaced by AI, government programmes must "completely reskill them in a new job class that is not going to be displaced".

It was not immediately clear when or how the programme would be implemented.

Climate agenda

The session also touched on challenges around sustainable development, women empowerment, data equity and the interconnectedness of climate and human development.

Badr Jafar, chief Executive officer of Crescent Enterprises, said: "We can no longer separate the climate agenda from the human development agenda or the nature agenda. It can no longer be a zero-sum game where we can progress one at the expense of another."

Nili Gilbert, vice-chairwoman of Carbon Direct in the USA, agreed by saying that everything is interconnected and interdependent. "We need to organise ourselves as an ecosystem to be able to address the challenges as they are."

Gilbert reiterated the moral imperative of maintaining a focus on social and equality issues, alongside climate and environmental goals, believing it to be “impossible to address the climate challenge without simultaneously addressing social and equity concerns”.

Lauren Woodman, chief executive officer of DataKind in the US, stressed the importance of data equity as a response to social challenges. “We began with the action-oriented premise that we must move forward and undertake the necessary steps to ensure that this powerful technology, with its abundant promising opportunities, maintains its human-centered focus."

Reshma Saujani, founder and chief executive officer of Moms First, spoke of the importance of empowering women in future-oriented fields such as AI. "Most women across the globe live in countries that have a broken structure of care.”

The Annual Meeting of the Global Future Councils 2023 took place on October 16-18 in Dubai.

The event hosted 600 experts from academia, government, international organisations, business, and civil society from the 30 members of the Global Future Councils.

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