Digital transformation should be a tool supporting and improving the quality of people’s life in Kazakhstan – Vincenzo Aquaro

Guest of the Digital Bridge 2023 Forum in Astana Vincenzo Aquaro, Chief of the Digital Government in the Division for Public Institutions and Digital Government - Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations, shared his thoughts on the development of digital sphere in Kazakhstan and whether AI can replace humans in the future, Kazinform Agency reports. 

Mr. Aquaro, could you please share your opinion on the digital situation here in Kazakhstan?

First of all, thank you for inviting me to participate in this very interesting and important forum. This forum is the proof how advanced Kazakhstan is in terms of digital transformation. We have been working and observing Kazakhstan since 2012. I can tell you have impressive progress. It’s been a long journey, but what is impressive is that a clear picture of the future from your leadership that started a long time ago. It is important that all stakeholders are a part of the digital ecosystem moving forward more to digital economy and not only to digital government. Of course, the digital government will remain one of the key components in providing services for citizens.

Could you please share with us your recommendations in order to achieve better digital government situation?

I will start from what was highlighted this morning at the opening by your president. I was very impressed by the strong leadership and very clear picture of the future of this country that the President has. He provided a very strategic and important priorities and even set up a roadmap on these initiatives. All key initiatives presented by your President are indeed strategic to enhance the quality of the life of people in Kazakhstan using new technology, using AI.

At the same time, from my perspective, I would highlight the importance of digital inclusion. It was already highlighted by panelists and keynote speakers that people put human at the center of this digital transformation. The digital transformation should be a tool supporting and improving the quality of the life of people. And, to do so, it’s important that all the digital solutions that the government and the private sector are providing need to be designed in a more inclusive way. All the vulnerable groups, including women, youth, people with disability, immigrants, they can benefit from the services in order not to create a new digital divide or social divide because of technology. So, digital inclusion is an important element that the government should look at and work on more. This is relying on the SDGs and key principles of leaving no one behind. That’s one point.

The second point is really to look at new digital skills at all levels. For sure, pushing more on STEM for the younger generation. At the same time requalify civil servants and provide training and new opportunities for them to improve their skills, to be ready to work in this new technological environment.

And the last part, it is really important to stress more on creating an environment that facilitates SMEs. This morning they were talking more about unicorns. A unicorn is a company that reaches $1 billion in terms of income. But, what is important is that most of these innovative companies that became unicorns they started as the SMEs. So, it’s really important to facilitate, to create and to boost the environment for the creation of these new companies. Most of the innovation comes from the SMEs and then there is the market that decides if they become unicorns or not.

Can AI potentially replace humans in terms of work?

It’s extremely important to look at challenges, to look at the risk of this new technology. But we should work in more constructive and proactive way, not to underestimate the risk, but at the same time you need to prevent, you need to manage, to create a regulatory framework that can help you deal with these risks.

There was another speaker saying that fear is one of the biggest enemies. If you are scared you will never get an opportunity for innovation. We need to transform challenges into opportunities. Innovation, new technology, AI is a more sophisticated tool, but still a tool for people. What is important is that all the stakeholders, all the leaders should work in a way that AI will support the work of people and not replace the work of people, create new opportunity for new jobs. Of course, there are some kinds of jobs that are going to disappear, but new jobs will come. So, it’s important that you create the condition for employing new people that have knowledge, for example, data scientists

Do you believe that ChatGPT will replace writers?

I don’t think so. There are different opinions on this. These new tools like ChatGPT are not going to substitute people. It’s important to know how they work. They look at all the content that was produced by human, not by machines and then they put together all this information. The creativity is not in ChatGPT. The creativity comes from human beings.

Thank you for the interview!