Questions raised in Thailand about artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence was the focus of the Thailand Digital IP Forum 2024. A major exporter of consumer electronics made by multinational and local companies, Thailand has also developed its own capabilities in advanced IT sectors in recent years.

Bangkok (AsiaNews) – Thailand has a strong industrial base, but its politics, culture and society often promote rural areas as the "real” country as opposed to regions that came under the influence of foreign models in the 1970s.

A major exporter of consumer electronics manufactured by multinational and local companies, the Kingdom of Thailand has also developed its own capabilities in advanced IT sectors in recent years.

For this reason, Thai authorities are beginning to ask questions about artificial intelligence (AI), prompted by the population's consistent use of social, business and information platforms and debates underway elsewhere.

AI innovation was the topic at the Thailand Digital IP Forum 2024, held yesterday. Organised by the Digital Economy Promotion Agency under the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, the meeting sought to explore the potential use of AI in Thailand as well as identify any limitations.

“At the end of the day, Thailand requires laws and regulations to oversee AI,” said Nattapon Nimmanpatcharin, president and CEO of the agency.

“Since AI technology, such as Generative AI, is still in its early stages of development, the country should strike a careful balance between enforcing AI laws that are not too strict as to prevent AI from developing further and not too weak to allow those with ill intentions from abusing AI," he explained.

The annual event, usually a showcase of innovative ideas and projects, was hailed by many experts this year as exceptional.

It was not a simple presentation of proposals for professionals, but a call to them to consider the possibilities of digital technology with the aim of significantly improving and broadening the understanding of it, and the way in relates to intellectual property.

In his address, titled Driving the Digital Economy with Artificial Intelligence Innovation, Nattapon said that technology and innovation were key mechanisms pushing the economy and society into a new era; this is creating new business models and reshaping consumer behaviour at a hitherto unthinkable pace through the use of artificial intelligence.

In Thailand, this will require bringing together several sectors and multiple players, most notably importers who can make foreign innovation their own, local developers who will receive increasingly effective digital services, workers who will need to get ready for new technologies, and the general public that must be educated to the safe use of new tools.

At the same time, all this will require an ethical approach.

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