The importance of applying responsible AI practices has been highlighted in recent years by a number of high-profile scandals, harms, and lawsuits associated with the use of AI without appropriate safeguards. As such, policymakers around the world have increasingly been introducing initiatives to promote ethical approaches to AI to maximise innovation while minimising risk.

Some countries have proposed and enforced laws specifically targeting AI and similar technologies, such as the US and EU, while other countries such as Switzerland are taking a lighter-touch approach that assumes existing laws will sufficiently cover AI. Countries in the Middle East have so far taken the latter approach, with multiple countries in the region having published guidance on AI but none so far have introduced laws targeting AI. In this blog post, we survey the initiatives launched by countries in the Middle East to promote AI ethics and innovation.