AI in Central Asia: So Who Is This Multifaceted Artificial Intelligence?
We live in an amazing time, in which humanity has found itself thanks to modern technologies. These technologies were created by a remarkable constellation of outstanding specialists of a new generation – engineers and technologists, or IT specialists. There are many of them around the world, and our region, including Turkmenistan, is no exception. Thanks to the skills and talents of these people, our world is changing before our eyes.
In journalism, business discussions, and conversations about the future, our time is increasingly being referred to as the "era of artificial intelligence." However, many – especially those living in the provinces – have difficulty imagining what exactly lies behind those two letters: AI.
Let's conduct a mental experiment and ask the first person we meet: what associations or images does the phrase "artificial intelligence" evoke in them?
In response, we're unlikely to hear terms like "neural network," "database," or "regression analysis." Everyday consciousness thinks in different categories. It relies not on mathematical models, but on disturbing myths generated by kitchen debates and popular culture.
In the minds of people uninitiated in programming, AI is a semi-animate being with a man-made mind. This collective character is divided into several psychological types, each of which evokes its own emotions.
For example, middle-aged people—those working in the service, retail, or office sectors—see artificial intelligence as a "shameless machine that will eventually take away jobs."
Their imagination conjures up depressing images: bleak robotic factories, deserted supermarket checkouts, driverless taxis, and soulless digital systems that have replaced traffic cops and endlessly issue tickets.
This exaggerated image of an "AI competitor" is simultaneously a threat to jobs and a total overseer, devoid of human compassion. The primary emotion here is the fear of being redundant and left behind by progress.
I can clearly imagine my friend—a grumpy retiree, a former government official—cutting off a question about artificial intelligence with this abrupt retort:
-I don't know! And I don't want to know anything about any non-human intelligence! My own intelligence is enough!
The other group of participants in this hypothetical survey are members of the older generation. People far removed from gadgets, whose youth coincided with the ubiquity of omnivorous VCRs. Their associations with AI are based on Hollywood blockbusters about the rise of the machines—a hybrid of "Terminator," "The Matrix," and "Iron Man."
In their minds, artificial intelligence is a walking, blinking supercomputer that will gain its own sentience, run amok, and decide that humanity is taking up too much space on the planet.
The situation will seem completely hopeless to them when this cyborg fighter considers humans a dead-end branch of evolution that must be purged from the Earth. It's the classic story of Frankenstein rebelling against his Creator. However, such fears will subside, as electricity and tractors once frightened people too.
But for a younger, more tech-savvy audience, AI is associated exclusively with smartphones. For them, it's not a threat, but simply a convenient tool: a voice assistant or a reference book that knows everything.
Young men and women see AI as a diligent servant, ready to quickly write a school essay or term paper, generate an image, translate a foreign text, and suggest where to spend the evening.
This perception of AI is like that of a "Digital Genie," who simplifies everyday life and unquestioningly fulfills the wishes of the owner of the magic lamp. This attitude echoes a quote from Leonid Gaidai's famous comedy, albeit with a slight clarification:
— Life is good! And living well is even better (especially when a reliable robot does everything for you)!
This "view from the street" perfectly illustrates the gap in perceptions of technology. While ordinary people see artificial intelligence as either a miracle toy or a threat to their income, economically powerful countries use it to calculate geopolitical and financial scenarios for decades to come.
However, it would be a mistake to consider AI a tool solely for solving global problems. In fact, it has long since become a firmly entrenched part of our everyday lives, becoming an indispensable assistant even for modest farmers and individual entrepreneurs.
For example, in India (and elsewhere), farmers increasingly trust digital assistants that advise them on the best time to sow, what fertilizers to apply, and how to protect seedlings from pests. These services analyze weather forecasts, satellite images, and soil conditions, sending ready-made recommendations not to an abstract analytical center, but directly to a simple smartphone in the farmer's pocket.
For small farms, such notifications are valuable not for their technological advancement, but for their practical benefits, as they help them navigate the season without losses. Fewer costs mean higher income. As a result, even in resource-deficient regions, farmers can plan expenses more rationally and make profits predictable.
So, who is this multifaceted artificial intelligence?
You might be surprised, but the concept itself wasn't born in top-secret laboratories under strict security, but during a scientific discussion at a seminar at Dartmouth College exactly 70 years ago. It was then that mathematician John McCarthy proposed this resonant term, combining two seemingly opposing concepts—"artificial" and "intelligence."
But the ambitious John McCarthy managed to rally a group of equally passionate scientists around this bold idea. They believed in the breakthrough hypothesis that any aspect of human learning could be described mathematically so precisely that a computer could reproduce it.
It's worth noting that this historic debate was preceded by the fundamental work of Alan Turing, the man rightly called the father of computer science. Back in the early 1950s, the brilliant English mathematician, logician, and cryptographer posed the question of whether machines were capable of thinking and proposed his famous test, laying the foundations of a new scientific discipline.
Turing developed a mathematical model of the ideal computer. He proved that such a device could execute absolutely any algorithm. Today, virtually all computers, smartphones, and data center servers, where neural networks are trained, operate based on the Turing machine principle.
In his famous article "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," the scientist proposed an experiment to answer the question: "Can a machine think?" The essence of the test is that a person conducts a text dialogue simultaneously with a real interlocutor and a computer program. If, during the conversation, the arbiter is unable to determine which of them is human and which is an algorithm, the system is deemed intelligent.
Incidentally, the fact that modern language models easily cope with this task has forced states to seriously consider semantic sovereignty. To protect citizens from the imposition of alien attitudes, countries today closely monitor the ideas and values conveyed by "smart machines."
However, we will return to this aspect of the issue in future publications in the "AI in Central Asia" series. For now, let's return to John McCarthy and his colleagues.
The rapid start of these enthusiasts, who tried to bring "dead hardware" to life, was followed by a long and arduous journey. The development of the new science was anything but a triumphal march. It resembled a dramatic change of seasons, where periods of turbulent "springs of discovery" were inevitably followed by "chilly winters" of failure and disappointment.
Inflated expectations were not met, and, faced with modest practical results, investors and government funds at one point almost completely cut funding for the projects.
In the first decades, researchers attempted to teach machines strict logical rules. And although the resulting systems could solve complex mathematical problems and even beat chess grandmasters, they faltered when faced with basic everyday tasks. This sophisticated "machine intelligence," unlike a three-year-old child, proved incapable of distinguishing a cat from a dog in a picture.
But progress did not stand still. In the 1980s, rigid algorithms were replaced by expert knowledge bases for narrow specializations. The true AI revolution, however, came later, in the 21st century, with the advent of the big data era and the advent of powerful graphics processors.
Experts made a tectonic shift: instead of prescribing rigid rules, machines began to be trained on gigantic data sets using deep neural networks. This approach allowed computers to learn to see, hear, and grasp the subtlest contexts of human language.
This breakthrough has taken technology to a fundamentally new level, where, before our very eyes, artificial intelligence has made a quantum leap from basic analysis to pure creativity.
Modern generative models no longer resemble primitive calculators. They act as fully-fledged assistants, capable of writing software code in seconds, controlling industrial complexes, and creating works of art, music, and literature.
There are high-profile cases of neural networks quietly revolutionizing fundamental science. A striking example is the AlphaFold system, which deciphered the three-dimensional structures of millions of proteins in a short time. It would take many generations of scientists centuries to complete this work.
In our everyday lives, high technology has quietly become a familiar backdrop, controlling driverless vehicles, instantly recognizing hidden pathologies in medical images, and constructing complex supply chains for global corporations.
As we look beyond the horizon of the foreseeable future, we clearly recognize that we are only at the beginning of an even deeper penetration of digital intelligence into the living fabric of civilization.
Experts believe the coming years will see a rise in multimodal systems that combine vision, hearing, text, and touch. This will pave the way for the creation of a new generation of intelligent humanoid robots.
Such prospects are both inspiring and alarming. The global scientific community is already close to creating Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), capable of solving any problem on par with humans and quickly adapting to unfamiliar conditions.
In this new reality, digital intelligence is expected to become an indispensable partner for researchers. It will help synthesize previously unimagined materials, find cures for incurable diseases, and discover clean energy sources. And it will be possible to send a robotic astronaut to explore deep space without fear of his or her life.
Yet the greatest challenge of the coming era will be not so much technological progress itself as our own wisdom in matters of ethical oversight. We must learn to direct this colossal force exclusively for good, carefully preserving peace, security, and privacy as the inherent value of the human person.
For Central Asia, where AI integration is only just gaining momentum, the experience of global IT leaders is especially valuable. The key lesson is that it's not necessary to start with grandiose and overwhelming projects. It's possible to pinpoint bottlenecks in established industries, where even a modest digital tool can produce a quick and noticeable impact.
For example, the same electronic advice that comes to a farmer in India could be delivered to our agricultural entrepreneurs on a simple smartphone, without the need for expensive servers or complex infrastructure.
Such online prompts would help them consider the timing and methods of specific agricultural practices, irrigation specifics and periods, temperature fluctuations, and the current care requirements for crops strategic to the economy and food security (cotton, wheat, melons), etc.
Agriculture, energy, and transport infrastructure all have routine tasks that automation can help solve more quickly, affordably, and reliably. By taking a step-by-step approach, based on real needs and the existing infrastructure, new solutions transform from a daunting "revolution" into a highly useful assistant.
…In the next publication of our "AI in Central Asia" series, we'll see how these prospects are already burgeoning in the economy and social life of the Central Asian region.
We'll examine how Kazakhstan is building a fully-fledged digital ecosystem, how Uzbekistan is focusing on the widespread adoption of technology in public administration and finance, how Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are seeking flexible, adaptive models, and how Turkmenistan is laying the institutional foundation for sustainable development.
Each country in the region is following its own path. But they are all striving to solve a common problem (and this has become a strong trend in recent years) – to do excellently what they already do well.
So –
(To be continued)
Bekdurdy AMANSARYEV,
Center for Strategic Studies, Institute of International Relations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan
