“A Minister of Artificial Intelligence who is the age of my son, appointed to regulate a hypothetical technology, proves to me that your government has too much time and resources on its hands.” Those were the words of a senior government official during a bilateral meeting in 2017, soon after I was appointed as the world’s first Minister for Artificial Intelligence. Upon hearing that remark, I distinctly recall feeling a pang of indignation by their equating youth with incompetence, but even more so by their clear disregard and trivialization of AI.
Six years into my role of leading…