United Nations Wants AI to be Handled With Same Urgency as Climate Change

The United Nations (UN) says it wants to treat AI with the same urgency as climate change and the organization plans to take a more active role in monitoring the technology.

In a report published last week, the UN proposed having the international body oversee the first truly global effort for monitoring and governing AI technology.

A UN report suggests that both governments and private sector companies should contribute to a global AI fund aimed at ensuring developing nations can benefit from technological advancements in artificial intelligence. The fund would support access to AI models, computing infrastructure, and training programs.

The report, produced by the UN Secretary General’s High Level Advisory Body on AI, recommends the creation of a body similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to gather up-to-date information on AI and its risks.

Dame Wendy Hall, a computer science professor at the University of Southampton and a member of the UN’s AI advisory panel, emphasized that the West must avoid repeating the mistakes made in addressing the climate crisis, according to a report by The Guardian.

Hall stressed that developing nations, particularly those outside the global north, need assistance in adopting AI technologies.

“If we don’t address an issue like a global AI fund now, we risk going down the same route as we did with climate change where developed countries are able to address the problem and race ahead while the global south is left behind and doesn’t have the capacity to address it,” Hall says.

The Opportunities and Risks of AI

The report further suggests establishing an international scientific panel on AI that would release an annual assessment covering AI’s “capabilities, opportunities, risks, and uncertainties.”

“You’ve got an international community that agrees there are both harms and risks as well as opportunities presented by AI,” Alondra Nelson, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study who served on the UN advisory body at the recommendation of the White House and State Department says in a statement to Wired.

The report highlights the absence of a global framework to regulate AI, cautioning that the technology could be implemented without people having any consent.

 
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