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Speaker 1: The Money Show, Business Books. Well your book this week.

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Speaker 1: It's called Mastering Sovereign Artificial Intelligence, Owning and Shaping the

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Speaker 1: Future in the Age of AI. It's by doctor Mark Nesila.

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Speaker 1: It has a picture of him on the front of

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Speaker 1: half of his brain seemingly encased in metal. I'm pleased

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Speaker 1: to tell you that he clearly survived the experience because

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Speaker 1: he's sitting in front of me now. Mark, good evening,

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for coming in.

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Speaker 2: Good evening, Stevin, thank you for having me, and to

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Speaker 2: the listeners.

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Speaker 1: He's also the chief data and Analytics officer at FNB Risk. Mark.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry to start with such a silly question, but

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Speaker 1: what I know what AI is? Well, I think I do.

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Speaker 1: What is sovereign AI?

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Speaker 2: Steven sovereign AI. It's about the ability of a nation

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Speaker 2: or an organization to control the AI development value chain

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Speaker 2: and maybe to give it a bit of more context.

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Speaker 2: For a long time, especially over the last three years,

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Speaker 2: we've been talking about AI to drive efficiency, to drive effectiveness,

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Speaker 2: to help come up with innovations and drive digitizations. But

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Speaker 2: if you look at what's been happening, the impact of

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Speaker 2: AI goes beyond just those benefits. AI is influencing geopolitics.

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Speaker 2: I think you saw France Germans start to face away

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Speaker 2: the use of zoom and teams with a view of

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Speaker 2: being independent. Technologically, AI is a big drive of national security.

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Speaker 2: We've seen what America and Anthropic have been having controversy about.

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Speaker 2: But AI is also driving the ability to solve social problems,

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Speaker 2: the ability to create new industries manufacturing, and and and

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Speaker 2: and build infrastructure. In fact, it's reimagining the future of economies.

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Speaker 2: Because of all these benefits, we're now looking at AI

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Speaker 2: as a national strategic driver. And because of these, nations

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Speaker 2: want to control the whole valuation because just the output

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Speaker 2: from AI will drive the benefits I talked about. But

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Speaker 2: the future of nations and organizations defend depend on controlling

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Speaker 2: the whole development value chain of AI, and that's what

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Speaker 2: AI sovereignty is all about.

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Speaker 1: It seems to me that we are just what I

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Speaker 1: would call AI takers. We are not AI formers. And

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Speaker 1: I mean I'm speaking just as a South African. I

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Speaker 1: don't know if that applies to the rest of the

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Speaker 1: continent as well.

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Speaker 2: Maybe you one hundred percent right. When I wrote my

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Speaker 2: first book about you know, African artificial intelligence, it was

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Speaker 2: about leveraging AI as consumers. It was about using it

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Speaker 2: to make predictions. It was about identifying opportunities for AI

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Speaker 2: to digitize things. But you see, being a national strategic

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Speaker 2: asset means looking at data and AI the way we've

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Speaker 2: looked at minerals like gold, and for us to get

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Speaker 2: the maximum benefit, we need to look at it from

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Speaker 2: a manfac sharing lens. There is no nation that has

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Speaker 2: ever realized its potential by outsourcing the processing of its

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Speaker 2: national resource, the same way there is no nation that

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Speaker 2: has realized its potential ability by outsourcing its intelligence. Now,

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Speaker 2: the top ten highest investors in AI are the same

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Speaker 2: one who have been leading in manufacturing of all times,

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Speaker 2: and they're not looking at efficiency effectiveness. They want to

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Speaker 2: glean all the benefits around AI, around creating new industries.

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Speaker 2: That's why we're talking today and we cover this extensively

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Speaker 2: in the book AI Factories. We need to think of

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Speaker 2: the factories of the future, employment of the future. How

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Speaker 2: will our national security work. How we need to be autonomous,

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Speaker 2: in other words, be less in dependent. Think about if

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Speaker 2: we have AI running our hospitals national security tomorrow, someone

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Speaker 2: can be angry about it. And if we're depending on

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Speaker 2: other nations. They could say, well, if we don't do this,

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Speaker 2: we're going to have to switch off these nations. And

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Speaker 2: beyond that, it data represents our culture, and if we

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Speaker 2: can control how we process it, we also protect our policies,

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Speaker 2: our culture, things we believe in, and our plans of

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Speaker 2: the future. And that shift from just being consumers is critical.

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Speaker 2: We need to be producers. We need to offer something

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Speaker 2: to the global world, and that will come from an

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Speaker 2: opportunity to manufacture intelligence with AI.

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Speaker 1: So, I mean, there's so many questions that come out

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Speaker 1: of this. I mean one of them is that we

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Speaker 1: saw the US supposedly in the lead. That's what it

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Speaker 1: looked like. And I say this when we sort of

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Speaker 1: internationally really, if we're honest, probably consume Western media. Really

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Speaker 1: suddenly China came out of nowhere with deep think that rivalry.

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Speaker 1: Does that give us a gap maybe to have a

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Speaker 1: bit of control over our own destiny. The fact that

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Speaker 1: there are two players, not one, particularly that Europe might

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Speaker 1: also become a player, and then that also maybe we

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Speaker 1: can create our own models now and therefore take a

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Speaker 1: bit more charge of our own destiny.

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Speaker 2: One hundred percent. It gives us a big opportunity to

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Speaker 2: redefine the AI ras you our own identity. We certainly

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Speaker 2: cannot compete against America because they've got all the researchers,

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Speaker 2: they're producing platforms through their higher education institutions. China is

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Speaker 2: leveraging open source models that we've got the likes of Deepsick.

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Speaker 2: We've got twenty three now which are being produced at

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Speaker 2: a very cheap price and being skilled. But for us,

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Speaker 2: I think our identity lies in the opportunities we have

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Speaker 2: driving efficiency, being less dependent, like you said, and making

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Speaker 2: sure we save the economies would have used to actually

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Speaker 2: import these solutions. When we look at unique industries that

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Speaker 2: have opportunities, for example, the health sector with then just

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Speaker 2: drive efficiency in the health sector, the education system, the

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Speaker 2: energy sector, think about security and law enforcement. All of

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Speaker 2: them have an opportunity to to you know, to to

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Speaker 2: redefine themselves using this technology, and we can just be

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Speaker 2: a modern smart economy as opposed to competing against the

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Speaker 2: likes of China, and and that will actually help us

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Speaker 2: realize our potential.

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Speaker 1: In many cases, the idea of sovereignty applies to your economy,

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Speaker 1: but it applies to kind of people think of national defense.

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Speaker 1: So that makes it a government problem. In the United States,

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Speaker 1: AI has really been driven by the private sector, and

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Speaker 1: there's been fascinating disputes between the private sector I can't

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Speaker 1: remember the name of the country, of the name of

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Speaker 1: the company and the Pentagon over what they can do.

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Speaker 1: It's not Palanter Anthropic, Yes, that's it, thank you. And

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Speaker 1: so I'm really interested in that tension between the private

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Speaker 1: sector which is developing AI and what government wants to

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Speaker 1: do with it. And in the South African sense or

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Speaker 1: in the African sense, and you want to master your

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Speaker 1: sovereign AI. Whose responsibility is that now? I mean it's

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Speaker 1: easy to say, well, government in the private sectors work together,

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Speaker 1: but you need to make them work together constructively.

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Speaker 2: The controversy between America and Anthropic was a reality check

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Speaker 2: of the impact and massive impact of AI and not

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Speaker 2: just look at like attitude like any other technology. Nations

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Speaker 2: that are powering AI are controlling the technology. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 2: why America is defining what technology will be used for

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Speaker 2: how it will be used, and including taking control of

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Speaker 2: startups like Anthropic what they've done and reusing them using

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Speaker 2: their laws. In China, the Chinese government is actually subsidizing

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Speaker 2: startups That's why we have deepsick we have we have

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Speaker 2: other startups like you know, driving the likes of retail

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Speaker 2: companies that China is supporting because China knows AI is

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Speaker 2: going to run every every aspect of industrialization of the future.

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Speaker 2: Because of that, nations governments must take control of defining

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Speaker 2: strategies and creating fair play policies to allow for how

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Speaker 2: AI will be applied across all industries. Remember Africa and

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Speaker 2: South Africa. We don't have big economies to make mistakes.

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Speaker 2: So the areas we're going to prioritize will define how

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Speaker 2: much we get buying and trust across different industries and

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Speaker 2: they have Unfortunately they have to work together or else.

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Speaker 2: Circumstances around AI will force different sectors to work together.

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Speaker 2: For example, you know, COVID forced sexors to work together.

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Speaker 2: I do think think the impact of AI is at

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Speaker 2: that level.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming in. I really appreciate

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Speaker 1: doctor Mark Nasilla. Nasilla is the author of the book

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Speaker 1: Mastering Sovereign Artificial Intelligence, Owning and Shaping the Future and

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Speaker 1: the Age of AI. Is also Chief Data and Analytics

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Speaker 1: Officer at FNB Risk