According to the Minister, the power of AI may be greater than nuclear energy, so the problems of AI could be even bigger than atomic bombs. AI and its issues will always exist and cannot be eliminated; therefore, we must coexist and govern it wisely.
The assessment was made by the Minister of Science and Technology at the scientific workshop “The Unlimited Power and Unpredictable Challenges of Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Negative Impacts and Policy Responses,” held on the morning of September 15.
AI Poses Unprecedented Challenges
At the workshop, speakers highlighted the dual nature of AI, providing comprehensive evaluations of its impact on the economy, education, healthcare, culture, sustainable development, governance, and national defense and security.
According to the Minister of Public Security, in the fourth industrial revolution, artificial intelligence (AI) is considered one of the key technologies and a factor that could lead to changes in the global order in the future.
With the ability to promote economic growth, optimize production, improve healthcare, innovate education, and enhance social governance capabilities, AI helps countries save costs, increase efficiency, expand knowledge, and serves as a resource and driving force to affirm a nation’s position in the digital era.
Alongside its potential, AI also presents unprecedented challenges, including legal gaps, ethical risks, technological abuse for cybercrime, information warfare, data privacy violations, and particularly the risk of impacting national defense and security.
Meanwhile, the Director of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics stated that alongside its enormous potential, AI harbors many serious and hard-to-predict risks.
Among these, the most concerning is the potential loss of control over self-learning and self-adapting AI systems, especially when they develop beyond human understanding and supervision.
According to him, AI has been and continues to cause negative impacts on the labor market, as many traditional professions are being replaced, leading to increased unemployment risks, particularly for unskilled or non-digital workers.
Especially if training data is biased, AI will reproduce and amplify social prejudices, resulting in skewed and unfair decisions.
Additionally, AI can be exploited for dangerous activities such as online fraud, spreading fake news, voice and image forgery (deepfake), causing public confusion and affecting social security and order; it can also be used to carry out sophisticated cyberattacks to infiltrate,破坏 information systems, critical infrastructure, or steal data and state secrets.
“The race to develop AI among countries risks creating strategic imbalances and escalating military tensions, especially in the absence of international legal frameworks to control the use of AI in defense and security.
Therefore, AI is both a tool to enhance defense and security capabilities and a source of potential risks to world peace and security if not used responsibly and transparently,” he said.
AI’s Problems Can Be Solved by AI Itself
At the conference, the Minister of Science and Technology stated that Vietnam first issued an AI strategy in 2021. However, AI is a rapidly changing field, and an updated national AI strategy and AI Law will be released by the end of this year.
According to the Minister, this is not only a legal framework but also a declaration of the national vision: AI must become the intellectual infrastructure of the country, serving the people, sustainable development, and enhancing national competitiveness.
AI opens up great opportunities but also raises many issues regarding ethics, employment, and social trust. Therefore, Vietnam must develop AI in a way that is fast, safe, and humane.
AI is for people, not to replace people but to serve them; AI is an assistant to humans. AI is a powerful tool, but humans are the decision-makers; let AI support, not replace human thinking, values, and responsibilities.
The Minister stated: “The power of AI may be greater than nuclear energy, and therefore, its problems could be even bigger than atomic bombs. But AI and its problems are like twins,
