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AI governance to close digital divide and protect the nation
Indonesia has the capacity to emerge as a pacesetter among its peers on this issue, building on the President’s 2020 AI Strategy.
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman gives a speech on May 26, 2023, during a meeting at the Station F in Paris. Altman, the boss of OpenAI, the firm behind the massively popular ChatGPT bot, said on May 26, 2023, in Paris that his firm's technology would not destroy the job market as he sought to calm fears about the march of artificial intelligence (AI). (AFP/Joel Saget)
Sam Altman’s June 14 arrival to the Hotel Indonesia Kempinski in Jakarta was a wake-up call for the Indonesian government, which acted swiftly to transform the Communications and Information Ministry (Kominfo) with the scope and mandate to rapidly regulate artificial intelligence (AI) to protect citizens, strengthen enterprises and ministries and augment security.
In addition to new minister Budi Arie Setiadi, the government's team has also emphasized the importance of the deputy minister, Nezar Patria, a former journalist and social activist who is close to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.
In my opinion, Indonesia has the capacity to emerge as a pacesetter among its peers on this issue, building on the President’s 2020 AI Strategy.
Indonesia has a secret weapon called the National Information and Communication Technology Council (Wantiknas), which has the governance structure and scope to handle AI. With President Jokowi chairing the committee, which also comprises the national development planning minister, the Kominfo minister and several other ministries and state-owned enterprises, the council is capable of engineering synergy between all units of government.
The council, led by Ilham A. Habibie, son of the respected former Indonesian president B.J. Habibie, can advise the President on how to move forward with AI policy according to ethical criteria set by Kominfo, which ensure that the nation will be able to protect itself from AI while benefiting from the technology.
It is important to note that the council has accepted a framework for AI governance called Meaningful AI (MAI). It builds upon 20 years of evolution of "meaningful broadband", a framework for closing the digital divide. Meaningful AI has three dimensions: for individuals, for enterprises (including ministries) and for security.
MAI begins with the early adopters of AI, most of whom belong to Generation Z and are 11 to 24 years old. On a global basis, this group is huge, numbering more than two billion, or 25 percent of the total population.
