THE IMPORTANCE AND RISKS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN UZBEKISTAN: A SYNTHESIS OF OPEN SOURCES AND A SWOT ASSESSMENT IN LIGHT OF INTERNATIONAL EVIDENCE

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a priority in Uzbekistan's digital development policy, while evidence concerning its benefits and associated risks remains dispersed across local-language academic studies, official reports, and media publications. This article synthesizes 30 open sources, including 19 Uzbekistan-focused and 11 international sources, through qualitative content analysis and a SWOT assessment. The Uzbekistan-focused evidence indicates that AI adoption is concentrated in the financial sector, accounting for a 30% adoption share. Student use of AI increased from 31% to 57% during 2024-2025, whereas only 10% of public universities reported having fully integrated AI strategies. Furthermore, officially reported cases involving unlawful AI-generated content increased from 1,129 in 2023 to 3,553 in 2024. A comparison with international research reveals that substantial task-level productivity gains documented in experimental studies (Brynjolfsson et al., 2025; Noy & Zhang, 2023) contrast with more modest macroeconomic projections (Acemoglu, 2025). The analysis identifies deepfake-enabled social engineering, rather than technical intrusion, as the predominant AI-related threat in Uzbekistan, consistent with the findings of Chesney and Citron (2019) and Brundage et al. (2018). The study argues that the central policy challenge lies in the gap between AI adoption and the development of effective governance mechanisms, a pattern also suggested by regional survey evidence. The main limitations of the study include its reliance on secondary statistical data, some of which have not been independently verified.