UN Chief Warns on AI Speed and Risks
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday warned that artificial intelligence (AI) is developing faster than anyone can keep up, urging the creation of globally harmonized rules to mitigate potential harms, particularly for children. Speaking at the first-ever government-level global dialogue on AI in Geneva, Guterres stated, "A technology that can reshape economies, transform the world of work, sway elections and tilt the balance of security is being deployed faster than anyone, including the people building it, can keep up." He emphasized that innovation needs guardrails and that if AI is to be powerful, it must be governed.
Inaugural UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance
The two-day inaugural UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance is not intended to forge a treaty but to discuss how to set rules to mitigate the potential harms of AI and take advantage of its opportunities. Delegates will consider a report by a UN-backed independent scientific panel of 40 experts, who will present findings from the first global, independent scientific assessment of AI. A more comprehensive report is planned next year, alongside a second global meeting in New York.
Guterres Calls for AI Child Safety Pledge
Guterres stressed that globally harmonized rules on AI must prioritize safety for children, citing examples of minors being steered towards self-harm and deceived by machines posing as friends. He said, "We do not let medicine reach a child until it is proven safe. We test every toy. Yet AI has reached our children – their learning, their friendships, their most private questions – before anyone asked what it would do to them." He called for an AI Child Safety Pledge, requiring companies to prove their systems are safe before making them accessible to children. Systems should also not be allowed to generate sexual images of children, and when a child shows signs of distress, the system should stop and connect them to a human for help.
AI Concentration and Global Disparities
While AI offers significant opportunities, such as in healthcare, Guterres warned that the world's institutions are not prepared for machines that make decisions, and that AI's breakneck speed of development means machines are increasingly making choices with little human or government oversight. He noted, "The internet took 15 years to reach a billion people. AI got there in two." He also warned about the concentration of the most advanced AI systems within a handful of companies and countries, leaving developing countries with little say in AI progress and risking being left behind. The independent report found that AI development is even more concentrated: the US accounts for 75% of the computing power among the world's top 500 AI supercomputers, and China 15%. While globally over a billion people now use conversational AI weekly, adoption in developing countries lags.
Bridging the AI Gap
Guterres said that if used well, AI could compress decades of development into years, potentially becoming "the great equalizer of the twenty-first century." The head of Libya's Presidential Council, Mohamed al-Menfi, urged closing the AI gap in Africa, which accounts for 10% of the world's population but possesses fewer than 2% of global data centres. He stated, "AI cannot be a legitimate resource if African countries cannot make use of it," calling for greater participation of African states in designing AI rules. Georgian President Mikheil Kavelashvili told delegates that world leaders also have a shared responsibility to create robust international laws to prevent the power of AI from becoming an "instrument of totalitarian control and new digital tyranny."
