The rise of AI poses dangers the Gulf cannot ignore

In business, you’re considered a dinosaur if AI is not part of your operations. But it comes with risks

In an age when we crave instant answers, our willingness to verify information – or even pause to question it – has diminished.

Information now comes at us at overwhelming speed and, rather than challenge what we see, we absorb it. This is why the rise of artificial intelligence is unlike any technological shift we’ve experienced before. And yes, its impact is frightening.

Over the past few decades, humanity has witnessed several transformative innovations: the internet, smartphones, social media, the Internet of Things and now AI.

These technologies have reshaped our daily lives so deeply that we can hardly imagine being without them.

When I ask my children whether they would rather stay in a hotel without a mini-fridge or without wi-fi, they stare at me as though I’ve asked the most absurd question imaginable. No wi-fi? Seriously? No wi-fi means no internet and no social media. Am I thick or what?

"Humans rarely regulate technology wisely. Look at how we handled the internet and social media – we always drift to the lowest common denominator."

Herein lies the problem. The internet took roughly 20 years to become woven into our lives. Smartphones and social media reached that level of dominance in about 10. AI has done it in two to three years.

In today’s business world, you’re considered a dinosaur – on the path to extinction – if AI is not already part of your operations.

Meanwhile, companies around the world, including here in the UAE, are investing billions in massive data centers to train AI models and support their operations. The implications are enormous: environmental damage, staggering energy consumption and the well-documented issue of AI “hallucinations”.

I recently encountered a perfect example. Someone asked a popular AI bot an impossible question: if Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha fell on the same day, which one takes precedence?

Any Muslim knows this cannot happen. Yet the AI answered with confidence, even citing scholars to justify its response. Most users, lacking the necessary background knowledge, might simply accept such an answer as truth.

That is where the danger lies.

If AI can confidently present nonsense as fact in a simple religious example, imagine the consequences when the subject is medicine, law, finance or geopolitics.

I am not raising this to scare anyone, but to emphasize that we are heading towards something potentially sinister if left unchecked.

Sadly, history suggests that humans rarely regulate technology with long-term wisdom. Look at how we handled the internet and social media – we always drift to the lowest common denominator.

We have gradually surrendered our ability to think, reflect and make measured decisions. The internet encouraged us to skim rather than read, to consume rather than question. Social media pushed us toward distraction rather than meaningful action.

But AI is fundamentally different. Unlike those earlier tools – which are reactive and essentially passive – AI can learn, anticipate and influence. Generative and general AI models can identify behavioral patterns and predict what we will do next with alarming accuracy. Worse still, they can suggest new habits and preferences that we might never have considered, subtly shaping our decision-making.

This is not science fiction. This is the world we are entering right now.

At first, society treated AI as a threat mainly to low-income or repetitive jobs. But reality is proving the opposite. High-income professions – once considered safe – now face the greatest risk.

Doctors, engineers and scientists who spend years mastering their subjects are being challenged. Even artists and poets – who rely on creativity, our supposed human advantage – are not immune.

The infinite monkey theorem suggests that if you give a monkey enough time and a typewriter, it will eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Today, the monkey is digital – and frighteningly fast.

There is a saying: be careful what you wish for – you might just get it. With AI, we asked for intelligence, prediction, speed, convenience and insight.

We got all of it. Perhaps too quickly and perhaps without enough wisdom.

Pandora’s box is open. The only question now is whether we can handle what comes out of it.