Congress must push for balance in AI regulations, says IBM PH exec

With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in various industries, an executive from IBM Philippines said Thursday that there should be balance in regulating the use of AI amid the related bills currently pending before Congress.

"I don't think we should let AI not have any rules at all. We believe that there should be a very direct balance… If you regulate too much, then innovation will stop. Because you are going to be discouraged to do anything," Aileen Judan-Jiao, country general manager and technology leader of IBM Philippines Inc. said in a discussion with reporters.

However, the IBM Philippines official said that if there will be no controls on the use of AI, then consumers of the technology will be disadvantaged.

"However, like of all us, we will be consumers of AI. If we are not protected, talo tayo (we will lose). I think we need to have regulations, but it should not be blanket regulations," she added.

Several AI-related bills have been filed in the House of Representatives calling for the crafting of regulatory framework on its use. Many of these bills raise concerns about the possible negative impact of AI if irresponsibly used.

IBM Philippines admitted that the use of AI comes with risks, such as hacking. Measures like adapting governance and proper encryption, the company said, can help prevent hacking incidents.

"Like any technology, AI comes with risks. There is also hacking in AI. For example, there's prompt hacking, pwedeng i-hack 'yung questions mo (your questions can be hacked) and make it skew differently. But if you adapt AI governance, it will allow you to detect if your model is starting to drift from its intent," said Judan-Jiao.

"You wanna make sure you are doing proper data encryption. In the world of AIs, standard data encryption does not work. Because in AI, 'yung crawl ng data is you do not know where," she added. "There are specialized data encryption for AI insights, because it knows how AI behaves."

Although there's no legislation yet, the Department of Trade and Industry said in a meeting last year with Silicon Valley technology companies and investors in California that the national AI strategy developed by the DTI is composed of four strategic dimensions.

These are digitalization and infrastructure, workforce development, regulation, and research and development.

The national AI strategy also aims to identify key sectors for technology and R&D investment, promote R&D collaboration, keep local industries competitive in the region and worldwide, prepare the workforce for new jobs, and draw major industries to the Philippines so they can create jobs. — VDV, GMA Integrated News