A recent announcement by the UAE government and OpenAI’s leadership asserted that one of the first byproducts of their new partnership would be increased access to ChatGPT for all UAE residents.
But, interpretations of this announcement have been varied, with some news outlets and individuals assuming that this means free access to ChatGPT Plus, OpenAI’s premium model, as GPT-3.5 is already accessible for all residents at no cost. However, this isn’t actually what was said, and others have been keen to point out that this isn’t what the partnership means at all.
Rather, the contending opinion is that the intention of the partnership and the government’s increased involvement in the AI industry is to increase integration across industries rather than subsidise the service.
So, What Does the Partnership Actually Mean?
It hasn’t been absolutely confirmed by OpenAI or the government just yet, but it seems like the miscommunication was introduced along with the notion of increased accessibility for all. While this is certainly the intention of the UAE law and policymakers, what they mean by accessibility is more about infrastructure and integration of AI, not making AI services more accessible with regard to affordability.
This means that, for instance, ChatGPT will, most likely, become increasingly integrated into everyday systems – for instance, in government programmes, schools, the healthcare system and beyond. And, in that sense, UAE residents will have significantly increased accessibility to AI services. Of course, the services, in this sense, will come at no extra cost to the individual, and, as ever, the higher tiered version of ChatGPT, GPT Plus, is still available to UAE residents at a monthly fee of $20 (around Dh72).
But yes, for all intents and purposes, the UAE certainly is making a great deal of effort to make AI services more accessible across the country, and this isn’t the first occasion on which we’re seeing the Emirates’ leadership taking big, intentional strides in this direction.
The UAE’s Plan for Artificial Intelligence
Indeed, in 2017, the government officially launched “The UAE Strategy for Artificial Intelligence”, a programme that aims to really bolster the use of artificial intelligence across the board, in terms of integrating it into existing industries and protocols, creating an entirely new market with a massive economic value as well as just generally having the UAE being successful in contributing groundbreaking tech and innovations to the global AI market.
The idea is for this to exist in pretty much all industries, from health and renewable energy to education and water.
A great deal of the objectives are set out in the UAE Centennial 2071, a detailed and extensive plan that reveals the country’s hope to be able to achieve significant progress across the board that’ll allow it to really compete with other major global players on just about all level,s and also give them the nudge that they need to really be able to shift further and further away from their reliance on the oil industry.
At the end of the day, the bad news (for UAE citizens) is that GPT Plus isn’t free for personal use just yet – unless Sam Altman jumps in and makes a big statement.
However, we shouldn’t let this confusion and misunderstanding distract us from what this partnership between OpenAI and the UAE government actually means for the future of tech, innovation and AI.
Not only does it demonstrate a massive concerted effort by the Emirates to get in on the AI industry and reap as many rewards as possible, but it also indicates a pretty interesting potential political relationship between the UAE and OpenAI as a major American corporation.
