Rebekah Mifsud

ICT technology is continuously evolving at a fast rate. Emerging innovative technologies are shaping everyday life both at citizen level and at a wider national level. Undoubtedly, keeping up to date with such major technological changes may reap rewards benefitting the economy at a national scale. Artificial intelligence (AI), for instance, is fast becoming one of these emerging technologies that not only helps shape the country’s future success in ICT domains, but also revolutionises society as a whole. Other innovative technology systems include Blockchain, the Internet of Things, and Big Data. The implementation of such systems, both in the public and private sector, greatly contribute to the adaptation of modern society’s challenges and demands.

With the introduction of deep learning and artificial neural networks that mimic the human brain, AI technologies have taken a big leap forward. It is without doubt that its implementation carries a great potential in aiding government to improve citizen lives, such that, government resources being invested within this field, may not only boost citizen satisfaction but also mitigate more citizen engagement as the communication between the government and the citizen is improved. The most beneficial opportunities of the use of AI are mostly concerned with reducing administrative burdens, manag- ing demand-resource relationships, contributing to informed decision-making, and ultimately taking on significantly complex tasks that would otherwise occupy too much time, consequently reducing much needed efficiency. Intelligent programs may be faster, cheaper, and more accurate at tasks handled by humans, especially those comprising of Big Data and challenging calculations. In essence, a digital government offers a great opportunity to improve the Public sector, boasting optimal service delivery and improving overall relationships and interactions.

Through machine learning, AI can help alleviate tasks handling Big Data, resulting in enhanced outputs and insights. For instance, patterns analysis may be extracted from data with large histories, thus, providing context awareness capabilities. These can in turn be used by governments to carry out informed decisions, and structure policy frameworks. The application of the appropriate AI techniques may help one reduce information overload, enabling the decision maker to only handle the relevant information. In addition, by considering real time inputs as well as historical data, machine learning models may bring about opportunity to acquire accurate prediction. Such reliable predictions are invaluable in that they allow the ability to make decisions based on thorough analytics that consider the plethora of trade-offs and constraints, thus, recommending the optimal solution to meet the intended goals.

Accurate forecasts and predictions by AI systems may also carry a great potential in enhancing national security. From military and warfare, to identity fraud detection and cyber security, AI’s application in safeguarding the country’s defences and security is vast. For instance, with reference to strengthening the cyber security front, AI and machine learning techniques can be implemented to reduce the risk of ever increasing cyber-attacks through the automation of detection, analysis, and defence. This is beneficial in that it facilitates the drive towards a digital government and a digital public sector, which may be critically vulnerable to sophisticated cyber attacks. It is undeniable, therefore, that valuable benefits may be drawn from improvement in threat detection through AIbased security systems. By means of the management of software vulnerabilities and threat intelligence such systems are able to identify significant high-risk incidence requiring immediate attention and corresponding appropriate action.

The implementation of AI in land, sea, and air transport may also prove to reap great rewards. Intelligent Transport Systems, can vastly increase in-country travel satisfaction by means of improved road safety, and traffic