Official government website of the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 
Three university faculty members delivered specialized scientific lectures as part of the university's participation in the «Saudi Internet of Things Exhibition and Conference 2020,» organized by King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology under the supervision of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, at the Riyadh International Convention and Exhibition Center in Riyadh, from Rajab 13-15, 1441 AH. These lectures covered a number of important topics in the field of the Internet, including: governance and ethics of artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence and the future, and big data services and the transformation of healthcare.
During the university-sponsored conference, Dr. Fahad Al-Eydai, Dean of the Institute of Consultative Studies and Services at the university, spoke on the topic of AI governance and ethics. He provided an overview of AI statistics, its capabilities, concerns surrounding it, the potential for AI error, AI and society, and its governance through ethics, emphasizing its importance and general framework. He highlighted that the increased demand for robots has led to a 15% annual increase in factory robots. He also noted that some countries have announced national AI strategies, focusing on scientific research, talent development, skills and education, the role of the private and public sectors, ethics, standards and regulations, and data and infrastructure.
Al-Ayiri indicated that over the next two years, it is expected that 2 million specialized robots, 130 million domestic service robots, and 16 million entertainment robots will be sold. In addition to an increase in demand for bots, as there are more than 300,000 chat bots on Facebook, as well as personal assistant applications like Apple's Siri, Samsung's Bixby, and Microsoft's Cortana, in addition to personal assistant devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home.
Al-Ayiri added, "Expectations indicate that artificial intelligence will contribute more than $15 trillion to the global economy by 2030, with approximately 70% of that amount going to North America and China alone. This is in addition to AI in self-driving cars, where more than 60 companies have received autonomous vehicle testing permits from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to test their self-driving cars in California, such as Apple, Intel, Google, Mercedes, Nissan, Honda, and Ford. The market size is expected to reach $550 billion in 2026, and the concept of car usage will shift from ownership to Mobility-as-a-Service.".
Next, Dr. Saleh Al-Bahli, a faculty member at the College of Computer, gave a lecture titled "Artificial Intelligence and a Better Future Yet to Come," in which he discussed artificial intelligence technologies and fields in the near future over the next five years. He also spoke about some applied models of artificial intelligence, touching on the great interest the Kingdom's government is giving to this field.
Subsequently, Dr. Abdullah Alwan, a faculty member at the College of Pharmacy at the university, spoke at a workshop titled "Big Data and Transformation in Healthcare." In it, he discussed sources of big data in the health sector, the use of big data in scientific research and evidence-based practice, as well as the advantages of using big data compared to traditional methods in scientific research. He also presented examples of applications for using big data to answer clinical questions and make medical legislative decisions, the ethics of using big data with artificial intelligence and machine learning, the practical and legislative challenges of using big data in healthcare, and the future of healthcare and medical scientific research in the era of big data.
