Leaders at UN weigh AI’s promise and peril
The rise of artificial intelligence took center stage at Wednesday’s meeting of the U.N. Security Council, with world leaders and diplomats acknowledging AI’s nearly immeasurable capabilities while urging caution about its potential harms in nefarious hands, as well as possible dangers involving military use of the technology.
“The question is not whether AI will influence international peace and security, but how we will shape its influence used responsibly,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in opening remarks at Wednesday’s meeting. “AI can strengthen prevention and protection, anticipating food insecurity and displacement, supporting de-mining, helping identify potential outbreaks of violence, and so much more. But without guardrails, it can also be weaponized.”
The session at this week’s annual high-level United Nations meetup showcased the global awareness of AI’s power, with leaders addressing the possible benefits in areas like medical research and international, in equal measure with warnings for its ability to create and spread misinformation and other ills.
“Deep AI analysis of situation data holds this promise for peace,” said British Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, heralding AI’s ability to keep “ultra-accurate, real-time logistics, ultra-accurate real-time sentiment analysis, ultra-early warning systems.”
But Lammy warned of the “challenges for armed conflict,” such as “the risk of miscalculation, the risk of unintended escalation, and the arrival of artificial intelligence-powered chat bots stirring conflict.”
AI has catapulted to the top of many conversations
Since the AI boom kicked off with ChatGPT’s debut about three years ago, the technology’s breathtaking capabilities have amazed the world. Tech companies have raced to develop better AI systems even as experts warn of its risks, including existential threats like engineered pandemics, large-scale misinformation or rogue AIs running out of control, and call for safeguards.
The U.N.’s adoption of a new governance architecture is the latest and biggest effort to rein in AI. Previous multilateral efforts, including three AI summits organized by Britain, South Korea and France, have resulted only in non-binding pledges.
Last month, the General Assembly adopted a resolution to set up two key bodies on AI — a global forum and an independent scientific panel of experts — in a milestone move to shepherd global governance efforts for the technology.
Wednesday’s open debate centered around how the Council can help ensure the responsible application of AI to comply with international law and support peace processes and conflict prevention.
Several, including Sierra Leone Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Kabba, stressed the need for the Council to lead the way on ensuring that AI is not used by militaries without human oversight, so as to avert potentially devastating escalations or misfires.
“The Council can encourage best practices in peace operations, promote safeguards to retain human agency in military uses, and ensure compliance with international law and international humanitarian law,” Kabba said.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, prime minister of Greece, called on the Council to “rise to the occasion; just as it once rose to meet the challenges of nuclear weapons or peacekeeping, so too now it must rise to govern the age of AI.”
Another focus among some of the Council members was lesser-developed regions like Africa being left behind in the AI revolution. Somalian President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud warned of “digital colonialism,” which he said can be addressed through partnering with initiatives “to help ensure AI is a tool for collective advancement rather than a social side of the division.”
Ahmed Attaf, Algeria’s foreign minister, noted that “only 10 states out of the 55 members of the African Union have adopted the necessary information technology regulations,” for AI, something he said “reflects the weakness of our legislative and regulatory frameworks in most African states” and “poses the challenge of digital sovereignty for the African continent.”
More on AI coming up at the UN
On Thursday, as part of the body’s annual meeting, Guterres will hold a meeting to launch the forum, called the Global Dialogue on AI Governance.
It’s a venue for governments and “stakeholders” to discuss international cooperation and share ideas and solutions. It’s scheduled to meet formally in Geneva next year and in New York in 2027.
Meanwhile, recruitment is expected to get underway to find 40 experts for the scientific panel, including two co-chairs, one from a developed country and one from a developing nation. The panel has drawn comparisons with the U.N.’s climate change panel and its flagship annual COP meeting.
The new bodies represent “a symbolic triumph.” They are “by far the world’s most globally inclusive approach to governing AI,” Isabella Wilkinson, a research fellow at the London-based think tank Chatham House, wrote in a blog post.
“But in practice, the new mechanisms look like they will be mostly powerless,” she added. Among the possible issues is whether the U.N.’s lumbering administration is able to regulate a fast-moving technology like AI.
Ahead of the meeting, a group of influential experts called for governments to agree on so-called red lines for AI to take effect by the end of next year, saying that the technology needs “minimum guardrails” designed to prevent the “most urgent and unacceptable risks.”
The group, including senior employees at ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Google’s AI research lab DeepMind and chatbot maker Anthropic, wants governments to sign an internationally binding agreement on AI. They point out that the world has previously agreed on treaties banning nuclear testing and biological weapons and protecting the high seas.