Megawati: AI Must Not Ignore Truth And Humanitarian Ethics

The Fifth President of the Republic of Indonesia Megawati Soekarnoputri in her speech before the rector of universities throughout Russia at St. Petersburg University Campus (SPBU), / DOK ANTARA

JAKARTA - The Fifth President of the Republic of Indonesia Megawati Soekarnoputri stated the importance of the government of countries in the world ensuring the use of artificial intelligence (AI) that should not ignore the truth and ethics of humanity.

According to him, the world is currently faced with uncertainty due to geopolitical battles, trade wars, strategic resource struggles, and technological competition.

"In this hegemony war, many are concerned about the use of artificial intelligence for war purposes that threaten civilization," Megawati said in her statement in Jakarta, Antara, Wednesday, September 18.

He did not deny that AI's development was extraordinary. Artificial intelligence offers increased productivity, efficiency, competitiveness, reduction of human error, and results in high accuracy in solving various problems in the fields of health, agriculture, transportation, manufacturing industry, education, and so on.

So rapidly the development of AI, continued Megawati, that there are those who imagine that the copyright that is the authority of God can be transferred to the human realm through the advancement of AI.

"You can imagine, if humans live in a system filled with robot humans'. Robot humans are all algorithmic and make decisions on the basis of rationality of artificial intelligence programs, accompanied by big data processing," said Megawati.

While humans are born naturally, complete with emotions and feelings. In various futuristic films, the AI revolution creates robotic bio-humans. You can imagine if an artificial human was born without going through a natural reproductive process as a divine work. The anxiety over AI's future that replaces human role is widely expressed. Especially with its autonomous decisions that can ignore humanitarian ethics and conscience creates a threat to mankind," he continued.

He said the anxiety seemed evident when in various events, including elections in Indonesia, the abuse of AI emerged, namely related to fake news, hoaxes, and other social engineering, to creating almost perfect imitations of human words.

The daughter of the proclaimer of the Republic of Indonesia, Bung Karno, then told a story, before going to Russia, she was shown a video. There, Megawati was singing.

The video is based on AI which was taken from a picture of him while holding a meeting at PDIP.

Megawati explained that the AI video looks very real and seems real. The voice in the AI video sounds real, as if it were genuine.

Even though Megawati herself never sang the song in the video.

Before I left here, as a female president, I was described as singing. It's amazing that my voice can be the same. Even though it was in a meeting. It would be nice if, my video is everywhere while singing. But I also asked, what if all (AI capabilities) were then used for other purposes? Only treated for the sake of power and human lust, for example? What if AI's ability is used to carry out colonialism again? " explained Megawati.

He then gave an example of the recent incident in the UK. Where various social unrest, radicalism, and extremism due to fake news (fake news) based on AI are circulating.

"All of them are a sign of serious warning when technology ignores truth and human ethics," he stressed.

Therefore, Megawati hopes that academics around the world can direct the development of AI that listens to strong humanitarian phenomena.

"Hopefully, through this very prestigious forum, the collaboration of research and education based on the spirit of humanity will echo strongly. Technological advances including AI must be framed with efforts to improve civilization, build social harmony, and relations between more civilized nations," he concluded.