Governing the Future in the Age of AI

Jon Clifton:
[0:08] While attending the World Government Summit in Dubai, I had the opportunity to sit down with Omar Al Olama, the world's first Minister of Artificial Intelligence. He's been featured on Time Magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in AI and is leading the charge into the future where leadership and innovation converge. Join me as we explore Omar's insights on the role of AI, the digital economy, and remote work in shaping the future of nations and economies.

Your excellency, great to see you today. We just wrapped up the world government summit here in Dubai. Talk a little bit about what is it that inspired you to bring in these world leaders to talk about some of the biggest issues of today?

Omar Sultan Al Olama:
[0:51] Sure, thank you very much for having me Jon, and it's a pleasure being with you here today, especially on my birthday. So I'm celebrating this in high fashion. I think Jon, so this whole thing started at around 2012. 2012 this region was going through turmoil. There was the Arab Spring, there were lots of issues that are happening around us, and the Prime Minister Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum was my boss asked the question. He said why is this happening? Why is the Arab Spring taking place? Why is everything happening? There are those who believe that there is a conspiracy or there are other factors. He believed that the fundamentals, if you actually go back to first principles, is that governments did not meet the requirements of their citizens. It's as simple as that. And it's because governments in the region as well across the world did not have an incentive to. So he said, let's actually be good students as a government. Let's bring the word and try to learn from it. So it started as a local effort. It started as a local effort for the UAE government to improve. And three years in, there was a lot of demand from other governments to participate. So it became a global summit with over 140 governments that participate and CEOs and thought leaders like yourself as well. And it's just been snowballing and growing every single year to what you've seen this year.

Jon Clifton:
[2:21] Now, you have Intellection in your top five. People with Intellection are oftentimes asking the hardest questions in the world. How does the summit help inform you ask some of those hard questions?

Omar Sultan Al Olama:
[2:33] You know, I think if you actually look at yourself, whether it's Jon or Omar or anyone else, and you say, how can I be the best at whatever I do? The first answer that would come is actually you need to be around the best. You cannot be the best if you are in an echo chamber with people that are either just like you or worse off than you. The summit helps us really have conversations with people who are the best of their fields across the world. It helps us as well understand, okay, are we moving forward? Are we stagnating? Are we moving backwards? And it also helps us build bridges with those who are really shaping the future. The future is not going to be shaped from the UAE alone. The future is a future that's being shaped from every single corner of this world. And there are different people shaping different parts of it. Some are on the technological side, some on the policy side, some on the health frontiers and so on and so forth. So the summit ensures that as a minister in the government, I'm able to rub shoulders with the best and the brightest, share my ideas with them, hear from them, fine tune my thinking to ensure that I'm always at the cusp and the cutting edge.

Jon Clifton:
[3:44] Now you have Input. People with Input are oftentimes taking as much information as possible. And there are literally hundreds of sessions. There are observations, remarks by hundreds of leaders. How do you sift through and say, this is the most important information that I need to inform policy?

Omar Sultan Al Olama:
[4:02] So, it's not humanly possible to attend all the sessions. As you know, there were over 200 sessions over the course of three days. And these sessions are on a whole variety of topics. I actually spent yesterday and today, because I spent yesterday actually doing what is required post the event, which is seeing off some of the heads of state at the airport and doing the protocol requirements there.

And this morning, I just had a quiet morning. I was just going through the sessions. I was actually watching all of the different sessions that we put in place. And what I always tell my team is, if we do a good job, we will be excited to actually see the sessions ourselves. And that's how we know that the content is actually really good. Because sometimes people like to fill agendas of these conferences with just anyone who's willing to speak. In our case, we want to change that around. We actually want to only have content that is going to be so exciting. And we have focus groups to ensure that, okay, it's not an echo chamber of just what Omar likes or what Mohammed likes or what someone else likes. It's really a collective of what is really important and what really matters for humanity. Another thing that you're going to realize is our content tends to be more optimistic rather than pessimistic. We do talk about the challenges. I think the challenges are very important to address. But no one who has shaped the future has shaped the future by being a pessimist. Everyone who has shaped the future, shaped the future with an optimistic lens that he can do or she can do something to make tomorrow better. So with that lens, we try to shape the agenda as well.

Jon Clifton:
[5:38] In Gallup's research, we find that one of the single biggest needs of followers is hope. How do you use your strengths, or what is it that you do in order to create hope?

Omar Sultan Al Olama:
[5:49] So I've got to tell you a secret. Actually, let me start with a thought, okay. I actually don't think that most leaders are born leaders. I think they are made as leaders. There are those who are anomalies. I'm sure after every rule there's an anomaly. There are people who are born with just some sort of genetic, you know, difference that makes them just leaders from day one, right? But most leaders are taught leaders, I think, through experiences, through mentorship, through guidance. I was lucky I think in my life that I had leaders that I was around that really influenced me and helped me probably become a much better leader myself, but at the same time, skip many of the learning difficulties that others would have to be able to reach what I've reached at 34 years old. The first is you know the ruler of Dubai our prime minister now vice president as well of the UAE has been instrumental. I've been lucky to be able to spend time with him. And every time I sit with him I realize he asks very different questions to most people. So let's say the Arab Spring. Most people will look at the causes, right? Let's say causes that are very shallow. He goes back to first principles thinking. Like every time someone says something, he says, but why? And they actually give an answer and he says, okay, but why? Until he's able to define something that is the core truth of why everything else stemmed out of it. And then he takes a decision.

The second is he really instilled hope in us. When I was appointed to lead the summit, I was 25, I think. So I remember bringing, at that time, it was over 60, 70 heads of state, Elon Musk and some pioneers in the tech industry and others. And you would never trust a 25-year-old to run something like this. And the day I was actually tasked to run this, my boss at the time, who's the minister of cabinet affairs, called me into a room and he said, I just want to tell you something. You're going to be appointed the managing director of the summit. And I looked at him and I told him, I'm not ready. I told him, you're excellence, I'm not ready. I'm not sure I can do this. And he said, no, don't worry. You will not fail because we will not allow you to fail. You have all the resources that you want, but you need to take us over because we need to start a new phase of the summit and it needs to be led by someone that's young. And the fact that he was willing to back me, I remember the first decision I took was a very tough decision, which is financially the summit never actually got any money from the government. So it's always been a nonprofit that raises money, right? And I remember saying, we're not going to allow anyone other than those who cannot afford it to attend for free. We will create like a membership package that people can come to the summit and leverage. But at the same time, it gives them value throughout the year. And it's just because I was really thinking about financial sustainability. And so my boss at the time the minister backed me he said go ahead and he also spoke to his highness and his highness said if you guys think it's the right decision go ahead, but make sure that you know you really thought this through.

Omar Sultan Al Olama:
[9:20] A year later, so probably four weeks before the summit, we didn't have a single person who purchased a membership package. And I came I was going to break down as I was you know really moved by this. I came to the minister I said your excellency I failed, and you know I think we need to send a letter out and say that you know the membership package is cancelled. Just please come and show up. And I told him you know it just shows that I didn't know how to take good decisions. And he said to me and I still remember this, so I got up to leave and he looked at me and said Omar sit down. I sat down. He said be a man. I was like what do you mean? You took a decision. You will follow through this decision. I don't care if the summit actually is empty. We don't back down from our decisions unless we know they are wrong. He said why did you take the decision? I told him because we need to be financially sustainable. So he said follow through, people are going to come through. And I remember we just said we're going to do something. We actually sent everyone a reminder that the summit is in four weeks or I think it was five weeks and you know there are membership packages if you want to attend, and over the course of the next two weeks, all of these entities from the region, from the country, started to register for the membership package. So the level of trust that you get really gives you hope. That I am trusted, I am empowered. And even if I think I made a mistake, someone would back me because I made a decision on the right terms rather than on terms of ignorance.

Jon Clifton:
[10:54] You had mentioned something about leaders are made, but he must have seen something in you to say, be a man, keep going. What do you think it is that he saw?

Omar Sultan Al Olama:
[11:03] So that's a great question. So I think why I think leaders are made ... my first few years of my career, I was so lucky that I was a fly on the wall. So I used to attend meetings. My job was actually just to take the minutes of meetings so that literally was my job when I first started to work, and I took the minutes of meeting for very important meetings, so with the Prime Minister, with the minister, I was so lucky to have attended some incredible meetings. So at one point of time, I think this was in 2015, I went to meet with the pope, with His Excellency the Minister, because there was a conversation about tolerance in the UAE and how we have 200 nationalities living in tolerance, and the pope was just interested in understanding what that meant. There are so many meetings that I really was defined by. Every single time I go and meet someone who I've dreamt of meeting, seeing how the conversation took place, how decisions were being made, how they thought, just that kind of interaction I think transformed me as a person, and then with time, the person that you're shadowing and you're mentoring, starts to see certain attributes in you that they see in themselves, right? And I think over time they start to trust you and enable you. You need to deliver for sure, but I think it's all about the experiences, the experiences that you get around leaders, and that's what I think really really matters.

Jon Clifton:
[12:31] With Input, so it's remarkable that you're there taking notes at a young age doing it with world leaders. What are some of the best lessons that you pulled out from those interactions with world leaders like the pope?

Omar Sultan Al Olama:
[12:41] So with the pope specifically the conversation was very interesting. I could see that he's very curious. And sometimes you have a hunch, you feel like people who are stately and at a very high position globally, so they are revered by people or they are really respected, you feel like they don't have the time. They just want to get things over with, and they just want to move you along. And I never got that from any leader that I interacted with. So whether it was the pope, whether it was Elon Musk, whether it was you know the secretary general of the United Nations or others or even the leadership here in the UAE, it always feels like when you go into a room and you sit with them, you know that they're very busy. You feel like they want to give you all the time in the world just to understand the things that you have to say, but in detail.

And I actually remember this experience quite well in 2017, before I became minister, I was still running the summit and I was doing a few other things, but I wasn't really a senior government representative. And I went with the minister as well to see Elon Musk in LA, and the meeting was supposed to be half an hour. So it was just half an hour. We're going to talk about a few issues and we're going to leave. The meeting took an hour and the reason why it took an hour is because while the discussion was taking place and again I'm telling you, I was a fly on the wall at that meeting. I wasn't really a part of the meeting. So I was there just to take the minutes, to make sure that everything was in order. And I was doing that alongside my other responsibilities. So I was running the summit and doing a few other things. But at the same time, I was taking these minutes. And purposely, I did not allow or I did not enable my progression beyond that position.

So I've always wanted to be the minute taker. And I always actually came back and said, okay I will take this other responsibility as well but please let me attend these meetings and take these minutes. And I could see you know my bosses at the time and I could see leadership because it's very weird look you know people usually want to become the manager or they want to become the boss, but you're demanding to come and take the minutes. That doesn't make sense. It's because going into that meeting, taking those minutes, you learn so much. It's as if you read a hundred books, I think, you feel like you've learned a lot. So in the meeting with Elon what I realized was half an hour in, his assistant came in and said you know the next meeting is here or whatever and he realized that one of the points he made he did not really elaborate on. He said okay I'm going to be there in five minutes. We spent another half an hour discussing that point. So the point was about car production in China. And actually today we see it, and the Chinese market.

So our thoughts to him at the time were you're a leader. It was 2017 so Tesla wasn't really the number one car maker in the world at the time. But he was talking about his visions for the future and you know the UAE and its position because the UAE sits in the middle of the world, right, and logistically it does a lot with regards to sending goods from one part to the other of the world. So he just wanted to speak about what he thinks is going to happen in China, what's going to happen in the U.S., and how the UAE is going to play that role. And he realized he didn't really talk about production in China. He spoke about China as a consumer market. So he made a point to actually sit and discuss this. And it shows you that these leaders have conversations where they are very present, they really communicate extremely well, and they ensure that the other party has all the information that they need to be able to take good decisions. Most people do not do that.

Jon Clifton:
[16:33] Okay, so you just mentioned, I always want to be the note taker. Of course, the theme Input is a lot like Leonardo da Vinci, where he has his famous notebook, the Codex Lester. Talk about how you index information. How do you maintain all the information that you learn and keep throughout your experiences in the world?

Omar Sultan Al Olama:
[16:51] There are a few things. The first is I try to manage my note taking very well. So, within the meeting, for example, if I go into a meeting with John and let's say Jack and Mohammed. If there are three people in that meeting, I would actually give an icon for each person. One person is going to be a dash, one person is going to be a dot, and one person is going to be a square. And every time they say something that is an important point, in my opinion, I would actually jot that down. And every time there is a decision that is an outcome of that point that they made, I would put a star next to it and outline it and actually put that as a decision. The moment I'm done, I would actually go, so there is a software that we built. I used to use these off-the-shelf softwares in the past, but then it was like I need my own thing. So there's a software that we built that's quite good, where every conversation that is work-related is inputted. And you can actually see it as a project plan, where you understand that these are things that were discussed. These are things that we promised to be done. These are the dates that we need to get them done. And this is the current status. So every time John calls me up and says, Omar, you know, there's this issue we haven't finalized. Before I actually answer the call, if I wanted to, I can just go to the software and say, okay, we are on time. This is when he can expect it. We are over time, and this is why we are late. And we can have a conversation that is quite productive.

The fact of the matter is, I think why note taking is very important is because it's like going to the gym for your brain. Your ears are fantastic. Like your ears can hear this information and store it. But imagine if both your ears and your eyes were working together and your sense of touch. So the number of neurons in your head that are firing is much higher than just hearing a person speak and that's it. Right. And then if you systemize it in a way, your credibility as a leader increases a hundredfold. Because people know like, OK, when he says something, it gets done. It's very quick. It's very efficient. It's very seamless. And if it is not done, that person can justify it before going back and forth, right? It's an iterative process. I don't think we've perfected it, but we constantly work on it that way.

Jon Clifton:
[19:22] You have Learner in your top five. You've mentioned that you read up to 52 books per year. What is it you're learning right now?

Omar Sultan Al Olama:
[19:31] I try to read a book a week. Again, I'm not always successful, but I try to make up the time.

Jon Clifton:
[19:37] What kind of book?

Omar Sultan Al Olama:
[19:38] I just read nonfiction. So I know that some people might think you know that's bad or some people like fiction books, but it's just how my brain stores things. And I believe that the problem is my brain needs to do something with the information, so with fiction books because of my circles, my networks, it's very difficult to have conversations on fiction books and what I like to do the information. So if I just read a book, and I want to store the information, I actually go and find someone to speak to about the book. So you attended my gatherings, as I do in the desert. The reason why I have this gathering, the primary reason, is for me to register the information of the books I'm reading. Because I would go there and have a conversation with someone and try to actually distill what I learned from the book. So then my recall becomes faster, it gets stored in my memory much better. And at the same time, I'm able to learn from that person because they're able to give me their inputs, right? So it's about the quality of the people and the quality of the books.

But one principle that I live on, and I actually am hoping to write a book on this one day. So I once came across this information, this piece of information, if you spend a good quality hour learning something, within six months you're going to become one of the best people in the world in this specific skill or the specific piece of knowledge. And you won't be the top 0.1 percent but you'll be within the top one percent of the world, and I said to myself if that is the case how many things can I master in my lifetime? So I broke down my life in six months sprints and said what is the total number of things that I can learn? So let's assume hypothetically I was 25 at the time and I assumed that I'm going to live until I was 85. So that's 60 years. If you break that down six months, that's 120 sprints. I can only learn 120 things in my life. And if you actually look at it that way, there's not much time. And there are so many things to learn. You can learn about critiquing art, you can learn how to cook, you can learn to play an instrument, you can learn the art of oration or writing or public speaking or socializing and networking. There are so many things to learn in life and there's so little time.

So what I do as well is I try to break down my life into these sprints. And even if I'm not successful, you will have time periods where you're very, very busy. Just the fact that I'm embarking on quality time learning something, my brain will be able to absorb information better. I will improve. The aggregate of it is you will see improvement over time. And I'll be able to build this sense of interest where I'm always interested in something else. There's a funny inside joke in the office. This is when we were junior employees. People used to call me the expert and they meant it in a condescending way because they're like every few months he comes to us and he's an expert on saffron and he's an expert on coffee and then he starts critiquing I don't know art. And they thought that I was a know it all, but when push came to shove they're like okay this guy actually knows his stuff. And why they were able to see that was because they saw it in action, like you know I could critique something but then actually go back to the fundamentals of it. So I've always had this, the sense of, okay, I need to have a sprint. I have to keep improving on that.

Jon Clifton:
[23:12] People with Analytical are oftentimes looked to by leaders for their advice. And clearly you advise leaders all over the world. In fact, there's a famous quote by Colin Powell where he said, tell me what you know, tell me what you don't know, and tell me what you think. How do you think about how you give advice to leaders through that Analytical framework?

Omar Sultan Al Olama:
[23:36] You know being close to leaders, whether it's locally, regionally, or internationally is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because if you are able to give good advice, you're able to shape the world or shape your country or shape your region. And it's a curse because if you give the wrong advice, then you actually are the reason for things not going the way they should be going. I only give advice I think in things that I have a relatively high level of confidence that I understand. And if I don't understand something, I would rather be quiet or say I don't know. And I think the most powerful thing to say is I don't know because everyone wants to act like they know everything. Very few people will admit that they don't know something. And that's something that I constantly try to do. If you come to me tomorrow and you ask me for advice on starting a botanical shop, on flowers, you tell me what flowers do you think will sell? If I give you that advice you should know that you should never come to me on advice for anything ever again because I have no idea what flowers to mix and how do you actually build these bouquets and other things as well. Sometimes actually I would do this sometimes I would actually ask for advice from someone who I know has no idea on that subject to see if they're willing to just you know throw something at me or they will honestly tell me okay I don't know the answer but I find it out for you, or I don't know you should ask someone else.

Jon Clifton:
[25:05] With Analytical, how do you make sure, because you can view a problem for a hundred different ways. How do you make sure that you don't get into decision paralysis, that you can eventually call a shot?

Omar Sultan Al Olama:
[25:18] Okay, that's a great point. I think the first thing you have to do is put all your decisions, write them down, okay? It depends on, by the way, it depends on how big the issue is, right? So if it's something that will cause paralysis, then it's a serious thing, right? If it's something that's serious, you jot down all the different options that you have. These are all the things that I can do related to this problem. And then you try to write down all the different outcomes of that decision. So if I take this decision, these are the possible outcomes. And the third thing you do is that you actually put a weightage. How probable is this outcome out of this decision? Based on that anything that is very low, you completely remove as something that you know is an issue that might arise from the decision, but the decision is not very good. Anything that is quite probable is something that you take seriously. But there is a thing that I try to do at all times. I actually try to have deadlines for taking a decision. I don't leave it open.

So if we come into a meeting and you ask me a question and there is a decision that I need to take, if I don't have the information I would make calls to actually get all the information, but I would commit to you that I'll have a decision for you by the end of the day. And I wouldn't go to sleep that day until I give you that decision. That stress that I need to make a decision actually allows me to move forward. If you have the sense that you can actually keep these decisions open, the problem that you're going to face is you're not really going to answer the questions, you're going to keep things open. And then you'll be stressed without actually knowing all the different things that you need to know. But there's also another thing. You need to take high-quality decisions during your day, so anything that really isn't high quality that doesn't need my attention I tell my team don't bring it to me. You guys take a decision unless you feel like it's going to impact the country, the office, or yourselves in the wrong way. Then come to me. If that's, okay, what kind of flowers should I send Jon because you know he just had a big achievement? You shouldn't come back to me with this with this question. Like you know, take the best decision that you think you can take and if you make a mistake, I'll cover for you, I'll tell you that. I'll tell Jon I made that mistake.

Jon Clifton:
[27:30] As one of the leaders of the Museum of the Future, what should humanity be thinking about for the next 20 years?

Omar Sultan Al Olama:
[27:38] The next 20 years, um.

Jon Clifton:
[27:40] Should we be hopeful?

Omar Sultan Al Olama:
[27:41] We always should be hopeful. I think if you don't have hope you wouldn't be part of the future. I don't think we don't have hope you're not going to be a good member of society because you're always going to be quite bitter. If you don't have hope you're going to as an individual be unfortunately less productive than someone who is hopeful. So I think hope is necessary, hope is crucial, and hope is what drives the world. I genuinely believe that the world is going to be better. That is the only way forward. We have to build a better world and everyone needs to play their role. I can't tell you specifically what's going to happen because things are evolving so quickly that we don't necessarily know the nuances, whether it's going to be AI on its own, whether it's going to be AI converging with biotech and biology and changing humans as we know them. But what I do know is if the actual use case is going to be one that improves quality of life. If it's going to be a positive use case, people are going to embrace it. If it's going to be negative, people are not. And I'm very optimistic that we're going to live in a better future and our kids are going to live in a better future than the current present that we are in.

Jon Clifton:
[28:48] Omar, thank you for spending time with me today to talk about your leadership, your strengths, and also thanks for helping us lead a better world and going into the future a lot more safely. Thank you.

Omar Sultan Al Olama:
[28:58] Thank you, Jon. I enjoyed that.

Transcript autogenerated using AI.