The United Nations Security Council Meets Due to AI Risks

In a report by Reuters, the United Nations Security Council had its first meeting to discuss the risks of AI. During the meeting, China said that AI should not turn into a “runaway horse”. The United States also warned that the technology shouldn’t be used to either censor or repress people.

The rapid growth of AI has caught nations off the foot, as the technology has quickly grown in both popularity and power. During that time, different nations have tried to find ways to come up with regulatory frameworks with China leading the global race. But the United States and Europe aren’t far behind.

During the UN Security Council meeting, Britain’s Foreign Security James Cleverly said of AI’s potency, it will “fundamentally alter every aspect of human life.”. Though he noted AI’s potential to help solve many pressing issues such as climate change, he continued, “We urgently need to shape the global governance of transformative technologies because AI knows no borders,”.

He pointed at how AI could be used by both state and non-state actors to disrupt the global order and become weaponized. At the meeting, the fifteen-member council was briefed by U.N. Security General Antonio Guterres, Professor Zeng Yi, co-director of the China-UK Research Center for AI Ethics and Governance, and co-founder of Anthropic, Jack Clark a AI startup.

During the briefing, U.N. Security General Antonio Guterres stated, “Both military and non-military applications of AI could have very serious consequences for global peace and security,“. He went on to encourage the formation of a U.N. body  “to support collective efforts to govern this extraordinary technology,“.

He pointed to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the International Civil Aviation Organization, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as models for such a body.  China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun described AI as a “double-edged sword”. He also stated that the government in Beijing supports a central coordinating role of the U.N. on establishing guiding principles for AI.

Ambassador Zhang Jun continued, “Whether it is good or bad, good or evil, depends on how mankind utilizes it, regulates it and how we balance scientific development with security,” He went on to add that there needed to be action to “prevent this technology from becoming a runaway horse.“.

But Ambassador Zhang Jun wasn’t the only speaker during the meeting. His counterpart from the United States, Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Jeffrey DeLaurentis, said that nations needed to work together on the issue of AI. He added that “No member states should use AI to censor, constrain, repress or disempower people.”