Illegal AI director: Expert claims Kazakh state fund’s board appointment breaks law
The inclusion of the SKAI neural network on the board of directors of Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund, Samruk-Kazyna, has raised legal and ethical concerns, according to political analyst Daniyar Ashimbayev.
Illegal appointment?
Ashimbayev said that SKAI’s (Samruk-Kazyna Artificial Intelligence) participation in the fund’s management violates current Kazakh law.
Notably, SKAI officially joined the Samruk-Kazyna board of directors in early October. Later, the fund’s AI director even delivered a report to Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov.
Ashimbayev highlighted that it is legally impossible to appoint an AI to a company’s board of directors, as Kazakhstan’s law on joint-stock companies clearly states that only an individual may serve as a board member.
«An individual is a person, not a program,» he said.
AI’s legal status
According to the analyst, if SKAI is indeed part of the fund’s board of directors, the government has violated not only established procedure but also the law.
He also emphasized that neither current legislation, the draft law on artificial intelligence, nor the proposed Digital Code grants AI any legal status as an entity.
«Certainly, automation can sometimes work faster and better than a human,» Ashimbayev said. «But a program is not conscious, not a person, operates according to a predetermined algorithm, and bears no responsibility.»
The expert added that the country’s push toward digitalization and AI implementation increasingly conflicts with the state’s own stated principles of legality and transparency.
