Indonesian official warns AI without oversight risks economic harm

Artificial Intelligence (AI) without human oversight could undermine inclusive economic growth, warned Indonesia's Higher Education, Science, and Technology Deputy Minister Stella Christie.

"To fully leverage the AI era, we must prioritize the ability to assess AI-generated results," Stella said, adding that the real opportunity "lies not in matching what AI can do, but in building the human capacity to verify and improve upon it," according to the state news agency Antara.

During a symposium on human resources and the digital sector's integration held in Jakarta, Stella said that the novel technology has already impacted the workforce, such as allowing access to opportunities that are no longer limited to experts, while also cautioning that utilizing it without human oversight could harm economic fronts.

The deputy minister said that AI was not truthful when her team used AI to predict the outcome of the country's qualification chances in the World Cup last week.

AI "lied" when the team used it to "calculate the probabilities," said Stella, adding that "it turned out that the AI only provided estimates. It didn't actually compute all the possibilities."

"It's not enough to understand coding," Stella said, adding that if outputs are not questioned and evaluated then people risk "basing decisions on false premises," which can have "real consequences, economically and in terms of employment."

Stella also called for the outcomes to be "embedded" in the curriculum due to it being "essential for building a competitive and resilient future."