Digital Cooperation Organization Adopts Riyadh AI Declaration

Digital Cooperation Organization Secretary General, Deemah Al Yahya addresses the summit on Tuesday. (SPA)
Digital Cooperation Organization Secretary General, Deemah Al Yahya addresses the summit on Tuesday. (SPA)
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Digital Cooperation Organization Adopts Riyadh AI Declaration

Digital Cooperation Organization Secretary General, Deemah Al Yahya addresses the summit on Tuesday. (SPA)
Digital Cooperation Organization Secretary General, Deemah Al Yahya addresses the summit on Tuesday. (SPA)

Member states of the Digital Cooperation Organization (DCO) agreed Tuesday to adopt the Riyadh AI Call for Action Declaration (RAICA), which seeks to use AI technology to benefit people, communities, nations, and the world.

The declaration, announced at Saudi Arabia’s Second Global AI Summit, was signed by all members of DCO including Bahrain, Cyprus, Djibouti, Kuwait, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Jordan, Rwanda, and Saudi Arabia.

The summit, hosted under the patronage of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, kicked off on Tuesday and concludes on Thursday.

The call to action aims to advance the DCO’s commitment to identify and address present, emerging and future humanitarian issues in the field of AI.

The declaration highlights the different ways AI can be used as a tool to benefit the lives of millions of people around the world by improving the quality of work, developing better-designed public policies and nurturing efficiencies into the ecosystem.

“DCO was created with the ethos of establishing an inclusive digital economy through collaboration across diverse entities at all levels,” said Deemah Al Yahya, secretary general of DCO.

“The RAICA declaration is this idea put into practice. By signing this declaration all DCO member states are reaffirming their shared desire to usher in a brighter future for all by harnessing the huge potential of AI to improve the lives of people around the world,” added Al Yahya.

The declaration highlights seven key pillars that will help to bring this future into reality. Each is composed of principles that seek to address methods to ensure that benefits of AI are enjoyed by all while harming none.

The DCO has developed a series of action areas to help the seven pillars to be implemented.

In other news, Saudi Arabia’s Mozn, a market leader in enterprise AI technologies, participated on Tuesday as a “Technology Partner” at the AI Summit.

Mozn announced that it was building the world’s largest and most effective Arabic NLU models and demonstrated its advanced software technology applications and use cases.

Mozn introduced delegates to OSOS, its leading-edge natural-language understanding (NLU) technology.



Canada Sues Google over Alleged Anticompetitive Practices in Online Ads

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Google LLC is shown on a building in San Diego, California, US, October 9, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Google LLC is shown on a building in San Diego, California, US, October 9, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
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Canada Sues Google over Alleged Anticompetitive Practices in Online Ads

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Google LLC is shown on a building in San Diego, California, US, October 9, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Google LLC is shown on a building in San Diego, California, US, October 9, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

Canada's antitrust watchdog said Thursday it is suing Google over alleged anticompetitive conduct in the tech giant’s online advertising business and wants the company to sell off two of its ad tech services and pay a penalty.
The Competition Bureau said that such action is necessary because an investigation into Google found that the company “unlawfully” tied together its ad tech tools to maintain its dominant market position, The Associated Press said.
The matter is now headed for the Competition Tribunal, a quasi-judicial body that hears cases brought forward by the competition commissioner about non-compliance with the Competition Act.
The bureau is asking the tribunal to order Google to sell its publisher ad server, DoubleClick for Publishers, and its ad exchange, AdX. It estimates Google holds a market share of 90% in publisher ad servers, 70% in advertiser networks, 60% in demand-side platforms and 50% in ad exchanges.
This dominance, the bureau said, has discouraged competition from rivals, inhibited innovation, inflated advertising costs and reduced publisher revenues.
“Google has abused its dominant position in online advertising in Canada by engaging in conduct that locks market participants into using its own ad tech tools, excluding competitors, and distorting the competitive process," Matthew Boswell, Commissioner of Competition, said in a statement.
Google, however, maintains the online advertising market is a highly competitive sector.
Dan Taylor, Google’s vice president of global ads, said in a statement that the bureau’s complaint “ignores the intense competition where ad buyers and sellers have plenty of choice.”
The statement added that Google intends to defend itself against the allegation.
US regulators want a federal judge to break up Google to prevent the company from continuing to squash competition through its dominant search engine after a court found it had maintained an abusive monopoly over the past decade.
The proposed breakup, floated in a 23-page document filed this month by the US Department of Justice, calls for sweeping punishments that would include a sale of Google’s industry-leading Chrome web browser and impose restrictions to prevent Android from favoring its own search engine.