Published on
Visions for the future of AI are playing out at the United Nations as world leaders talk about the threat — or promise — of artificial intelligence.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres kicked off the parade of world leaders speaking at the General Assembly by calling for more oversight of AI, warning in vivid if not ominous terms of what could go wrong.
“Let us resolve that life-and-death decisions must never be surrendered to machines. Killer robots must have no place in our future,” Guterres said in his farewell address to world leaders. He also warned about AI in his first General Assembly address a decade ago.
With Guterres saying the world needs to “advance the conditions for the responsible pacing of AI and the additional safeguards needed to address risks,” the UN Security Council on Wednesday will address how to place some kind of controls on the technology and it will feature some of the biggest names in the field.
US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, stood by his firm opposition to regulating AI, while arguing the word “artificial” undersold the technology and voicing hope the rest of the world would adopt the new term.
Super Intelligence “sounds much better” and “it’s much more accurate,” he said.
also compared the warnings of AI safety advocates to warnings about climate change, whose human causes are affirmed by the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community.
“The United States totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control… artificial intelligence,” he said.
“Every major new technology brings challenges, and superintelligence is no exception,” he added.
“The very same people who said we’ll all be dead in 12 years because of global warming… are now saying that AI is going to kill us all, that robots are going to attack us, and that everything is going to be a total disaster.”
Other nations call for safeguards
Ahead of the UN assembly, leaders of more than 20 mostly European countries urged binding safety measures for advanced AI, warning that the technology’s development could outpace the ability to control it.
AI superpowers China and the United States did not endorse the idea.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Britain would launch an effort to establish global AI standards during its 2027 G20 presidency, while announcing an AI defence partnership with Washington to detect cyberattacks on critical infrastructure.
“We will work towards agreeing a single set of global principles and standards to ensure the transparency and access we need to increase our preparedness and to ensure that AI development is safe,” he said.
He earlier revealed London plans to use Britain’s role as host of the Group of 20 next year to push for a “single set of global principles and standards” around AI.
French President Emmanuel Macron proposed building AI technology independent from the great powers.
“I don’t want anyone to become the vassal of one of the great powers,” Macron told the UN General Assembly, apparently in reference to China and the US.
“Our investment capabilities must be pooled to build a cutting-edge open-source AI model, which we will share. We should not depend on somebody else.”
The US-based AI giants themselves are increasingly asking for global coordination on AI safety, with OpenAI’s Sam Altman set to address the UN Security Council on Wednesday.
France, which holds the Security Council presidency this month, initiated the meeting and believes AI’s threat to international peace and security has not been sufficiently discussed at the UN.
Additional sources • AP, AFP