Jadd Elliot Dib on ChatGPT, identity verification, and all things AI 

The AI market continues to develop and expand its presence in developed markets, particularly in Dubai. The emirate city is home to many startups unafraid to put their best foot forward; each firm keen to develop the next take on what the new frontier of AI should look like.

On Monday, I had an engaging conversation with the CEO of just such a startup called Pangaea X. Jadd Elliot Dib, CEO of Pangaea X, leads a firm with five years of experience in the AI industry.

We discussed many topics, from specialised AI tools to privacy concerns to possible integrations with blockchain and Web3. 

Dib’s quick recollections pre-interview of his professional experience and time spent in Paris, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom (a set of places I was able to spot later on LinkedIn more accurately) paint a picture of someone well-traveled.

His constant shuttling back and forth between countries mimics his journey to AI as well. A string of internships, mostly in IT, led him to his first professional start in Deloitte as a business analyst; after which he transitioned to a consultant for IT risk and risk advisory services, where he played a key role in managing IBM software licensing.

Mr Dib quickly moved up the ranks across different companies to managing partner at Aerotime SSME, finally then taking the plunge as Founder of Pangaea X.

Leading an AI company in Dubai may seem a tough venture to handle for the reader, but Mr Dib appears to navigate it effortlessly. Perhaps his constant experience of change, both in his professional and domestic life, has set him up for entrepreneurship in an emerging sector.

Johann 

Hi, Mr. Jadd. 

Jadd 

Hi. 

Johann

I’m a news writer for Coin Headlines. And today we’re going to be talking about all things AI. So my first question to you is, which industries do you see being most disrupted as AI continues to develop? 

Jadd 

To be very honest with you… all industries that have knowledge-based jobs are in jeopardy. We live in a time where knowledge is not worth as much as it used to be. Right. Back 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, Knowledge used to be the base of why you hire somebody. Knowledge used to be the base of why you go to university.

Right. Because you were trying to acquire knowledge. Nowadays, with AI, knowledge is almost free. And if it’s not free, it’s very attainable. You can pay a little subscription to an AI. ChatGPT. Pro. Whatever other AI there is. Google, Gemini pulls all that information. You can get the knowledge. The knowledge is easily accessible. So I believe the jobs that are knowledge-based are the ones that will be first replaced then after that. Sure. Everybody talks about manual labor where you have robotics machines. Everything will eventually start being replaced.

Johann 

Manufacturer?(Manufacturing) 

Jadd 

Yes, exactly. Manufacturing…eventually. But I believe it’s a harder journey to replace manual work than knowledge-based. Knowledge base(based)is already in jeopardy. 

Johann

Recently, we’ve seen U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders call for a four-day workweek. And…it’s now mandatory that government employees in the U.A.E. will have a four-day workweek during the summer. 

I wonder, though, do you see a future very soon where the private sector also will be implementing a four-day workweek purely because of AI and how it’s able to automate all office functions? 

Jadd

I cannot predict what governments decide to do. Right. But when…for example…When I first arrived here in Dubai, the weekend was Friday-Saturday. They changed that from Friday-Saturday to Saturday-Sunday, right? Why did they do that? 

They did that because…The UAE needs to be on the international market. Right. And it wants to be on the global stage. 

If you want to be part of the global stage, you need to be on the same timelines. When the markets open for trading, for banking, for whatever it is…in the West…all over the world. You need to be part of it. To lose almost 20% of your week because that’s what Friday is.

It’s one day…one out of five, right? 20% of your week was lost because Friday was a weekend…international financial markets, I’m talking. Right. So they made that decision to change the workweek. 

Now, because of AI, will that change in the future? Most countries go for a four-day workweek. I don’t believe AI has anything to do with what governments decide…what private companies decide.

I think it’s more about efficiency. So if your employees—as a privately owned company—your employees are efficient enough, maybe using AI because they are supported by AI, by software, by tech, and so on, their workweeks can be more efficient. 

In four days, you can get all the work done in five. And that you used to do in five, then so be it. But I don’t think it will be a standard. Okay. To each their own. 

Johann 

Another recent news update. OpenAI signed a $200 million defense contract with the US Department of Defense. So now obviously we have… publicly known AI tools like ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini…What are some AI tools that the public would not normally hear about? 

Jadd

You know, to be honest, there are so many AI tools, I can name you a whole bunch. I can name you…Clara AI…It was developed by KPMG. It’s for audit. It’s to automate certain things and use artificial intelligence in audit…It tells you the observations, what you should do, to recommendations, and so on and so forth.

There are so many different AI tools. But I think the interesting thing that you should be talking about and you should be looking at is what these AI tools are based off of. 

Okay, not every company and not every tool, not every app developer is able to develop an AI model. All of them, if not, if not all of them, maybe 90% of them are all based off of existing AI models, right?

So I can tell you, these video generation, apps, these image generation apps, what are they based off of? They are based off of ChatGPT…there is the source code that you can integrate…You can integrate Grok. You can integrate Gemini. You can integrate these multi-billion-dollar AI models that have been developed by the giants of the tech industry.

You take their AI model and you develop it into an app that you can do something that is relevant to your business, right? Because if every app developer or every small company, even us (Pangaea), for us to develop an AI model ourselves, it would take millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, to actually develop a proper working AI.

But we don’t have that kind of…time, effort, money. Not all companies have hundreds of millions, if not billions, right? So they use preexisting models and they create their app based off of that model. It’s a source code. It’s an algorithm. It’s the back end of the app. Right? So not developing their own original code, just integrating it…it’s not proprietary to them. They have taken open source AI models like ChatGPT and integrated it into their idea.

Johann

Now that the interaction points with AI has become more…it requires more data, right? It no longer just takes text from us. It takes videos, images, audio bytes, everything. Do you see any potential privacy concerns? There are already quite a few, but do you see any more privacy concerns arising as these models continue to develop?

Jadd

There’s always going to be privacy concerns. There’s always going to be…Confidentiality concerns, data breaches. Governments will come up with compliance regulations and laws to protect people’s consumer data. 

They will do their best. And even when they do their best, there will always be someone, somewhere, finding a way or trying to find a way to misuse data that is not, that is not, it’s not the biggest concern to be very honest with you, a lot of people have made their peace with their data being public.

We live in a world of social media…your face is no longer private, right? Your kids, his face, your family’s face, everything…People are posting videos of themselves in their home, watching TV, eating food, and even conversations on social media are getting picked up.

So…I think there is that worry. There will always be that worry. And we just have to find a way to either mitigate or minimize that worry. And governments will come up with rules, laws, and regulations to really protect the public.

But there will always be the outlier that is always looking to do something bad. We just have to minimize that and try and find a way through it. There’s no way to 100% proof…Especially when we live in a world with so much public data. 

Johann

Now, alongside AI, we’re seeing other emerging technologies, for example, Web3, which is now supposed to be the latest iteration of the internet…

Whereas your web 1.0 was just a read-only page, and the new web 2.0 was something you could interact with. You could put your information, your profile, and obviously, you have blockchain, which seeks to revolutionize finance. Do you see any possible integrations between Web 3.0 and AI? And also, do you see any possible integrations between AI and blockchain?

Jadd

Web3 is all focused on decentralizing. It’s decentralized, where going back to your previous question of these billion-dollar companies having complete control over the internet, right, because we don’t actually see what’s on…. I don’t know how to… to express it without… the dark side of the internet, let’s say…

Johann

The deep web. 

Jadd

Yeah…let’s call it the rest of the internet, okay? People don’t see the rest of the internet. People only see what Google recommends, for example. Right… If that website is not on Google, it has no exposure. 

So, therefore, it’s basically telling us that Google has a full, if not very close to full, control of what people see on the internet and what is recommended to people, and so on and so forth. Right. Web3 is going towards decentralizing that, which means there is no huge billion-dollar tech company like Google that will be able to control what you see on the internet.

Right? That is the point of Web3 being completely decentralized. Now, if we talk about the blockchain. Blockchain is not just a financial thing, by the way. Blockchain can be applied in so many different industries and so many different ways. Blockchain is a way of verifying things, to cut it very short

It’s a way of verifying things. So you can implement a blockchain, let’s say, at the university level, for example. Right, people, there have been scandals all over the world where people are printing or creating certificates and degrees that look like they went to a university. Okay. Some companies don’t go to the extent of how do I validate this?

I need to go and…speak to the university and make sure that they actually have this degree. Was he a student there? Right. If they implement blockchain, they will no longer need to speak to a university. They can just go on and check the ID, the address, and see, okay, is this a valid certificate or is it a fake?

Right. Blockchain can be applied in so many different ways. And that is the point of blockchain in financial terms. It’s verifying each transaction because it’s decentralized, and it’s open to the public. No one has complete control. Right. So every transaction that you make with crypto, the ledger is open to the public. You can see every single transaction, and no one can edit these transactions.

But there are so many different ways it can be implemented. But at this point in time, I don’t think people are ready to integrate AI with blockchain or even crypto because we’re still learning about it. Right? Fintech is still developing as an industry. They’re still developing certain services, platforms, and software. Blockchain is still not fully implemented, which it could be because people don’t really know what it is.

Johann

Recently, we’ve had the tokenization of real-world assets. For example..(the)a partnership with Dubai Land Department to tokenize investment in real estate. Do you think that’s a specific sort of use case or product that could play a part in the future? 

Jadd

Yeah, 100%. It could play a part. And if it was going to play a part, it would play a part here in Dubai…There are three leading countries in AI, right? There’s the U.S, China, and then there’s UAE. And actually, the UAE, if we look at things, the government is actually so advanced, probably more advanced than the other two countries I just named, in regards to the implementation of AI.

Right. We hear that the UAE government or the Dubai government is also using AI to develop, to develop laws. Right. They’re trusting an AI model to be fed all the data, and it will come up with the law. Right. If the government is really investing heavily in AI and implementing it where it can, because they understand the value of AI.