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António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, said that the new advisory body aims to maximise the benefits of AI to humanity.
The United Nations has launched a new advisory body on artificial intelligence to promote international collaboration and governance as AI continues to disrupt industries and wider society.
Launched by UN secretary-general António Guterres, the AI advisory body will hold its first meeting today (27 October), bringing together experts from national governments, the private sector (including OpenAI’s CTO), researchers and civil society to establish an interdisciplinary taskforce.
“For developing economies, AI offers the possibility of leapfrogging outdated technologies and bringing services directly to people who need them most. The transformative potential of AI for good is difficult even to grasp,” Guterres said.
“And without entering into a host of doomsday scenarios, it is already clear that the malicious use of AI could undermine trust in institutions, weaken social cohesion and threaten democracy itself.
“For all these reasons, I have called for a global, multidisciplinary, multistakeholder conversation on the governance of AI so that its benefits to humanity – all of humanity – are maximised, and the risks contained and diminished.”
Earlier this year, the Center for AI Safety based in San Francisco released a statement saying that mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a “global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war”.
Signatories of the statement included the chief executives of some of the world’s leading AI companies: Google’s DeepMind, Anthropic, and of course, ChatGPT developer OpenAI, whose CEO Sam Altman stunned many in the US Congress when he urged lawmakers to regulate the burgeoning AI sector while it is still in its early stages in order to prevent potential damage.
“We believe it is essential to develop regulations that incentivise AI safety while ensuring that people are able to access the technology’s many benefits,” Altman said at the time. “It is also essential that a technology as powerful as AI is developed with democratic values in mind.”
However, the Center for AI Safety’s statement was also criticised by some, including Ireland’s Prof Barry O’Sullivan, as “irresponsible scaremongering” and blown out of proportion.
“It distracts from the important and real issues around the deployment of AI technologies,” O’Sullivan told SiliconRepublic.com in an interview.
“These include how AI systems can amplify human bias to the detriment of individuals and society, as well as ensuring that AI-enabled decision-making is fair, transparent and accountable.”
A statement released by the UN says that the new advisory body’s immediate tasks include building a global scientific consensus on risks and challenges, helping to harness AI for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and strengthening international cooperation on AI governance.
It is expected to issue preliminary recommendations by the end of this year, with final recommendations due by summer 2024.
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