The push to connect a digitally divided world and counter AI threats

This article is published in association with United Nations.

A surge in the development of powerful artificial intelligence (AI) tools is already improving lives but is also bringing fresh urgency to calls for regulation, as more and more governments wake up to the risks. Effective global regulation to ensure that AI is developed safely for the benefit of all is urgently needed.

Earlier this year, an audience in a Geneva conference hall sat captivated by a video screen carrying live pictures of a 25-year-old man in Portugal suffering from ‘locked-in syndrome’, a devastating neurological disorder that causes patients to lose control of their body; some two years after contracting the condition, he was unable to move or speak.

Nevertheless, he was able to communicate with the audience and answer a series of questions, using his mind to connect with a digital, AI-powered tool that translated his thoughts into words, spoken in his voice.

© ITU / S. Jacobson-Walsh

A woman greets a robot at the AI for Good Global Summit 2024 in Geneva.

Lives are being saved by AI

The experience was overwhelming for many in the audience, several of whom were in tears. “I had to compose myself,” says Fred Werner, Head of Strategic Engagement at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the UN agency for digital technology, and one of the organizers of the AI for Good summit. “Yes, there are many discussions around safety, privacy, ethics and sustainability, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that lives are being saved by AI.”

Mr. Werner is quick to point out that the positive aspects of AI are not being overlooked by the UN. “We’ve identified over 400 applications of AI across the UN system. It’s being used in areas ranging from natural hazards management to human rights monitoring, a wide selection of sustainable development-related activities”.

Whilst the Geneva demonstration of AI technology serves as a powerful example of the positive effect that artificial intelligence can have on people’s lives, Mr. Werner acknowledges that excitement over the potential benefits of AI is tempered by the risks.

“I think that AI is moving so fast that there is no time to waste. How do we deal with deepfakes, and misinformation? We have to really collaborate on creating international AI standards.”

© UNICEF/Sujay Reddy

In New Delhi India, a poster plays a role in dispelling myths about the COVID-19 vaccine.

The disinformation dilemma

This September, at the Summit of the Future, a landmark UN conference, the Organization’s Member countries will adopt a Global Digital Compact, which contains warnings of the consequences of AI being used with malicious intent, to deepen divisions within and between nations, heighten insecurity, violate human rights, and worsen inequality.

The Compact is intended to inject more trust into the Internet, ensure that people have more options as to how their data is used, and outline accountability for discriminatory and misleading content.

This is the UN’s latest step towards effective international AI regulation. A breakthrough was reached in November 2021, the 193 Member States of the UN science agency, UNESCO, adopted the first global agreement on human-centric artificial intelligence, the Recommendation on the Ethics of AI, a guideline to all governments for creating laws and strategies for AI, aimed at protecting human rights and freedoms.

Two years later, UN Secretary-General António Guterres brought together some of the brightest minds in tech, from both the public and private sectors, to form his Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence, whose 38 members concluded, in a report that concluded AI  “cries out for governance, not merely to address the challenges and risks, but to ensure we harness its potential in ways that leave no one behind.”

This work has fed into the development of the Global Digital Compact, which comprises a list of commitments and actions. Several relate to the so-called “digital divide”: 2.6 billion people do not have any access to the Internet, cutting them off from the opportunities offered by online tools. The Compact calls for all schools and hospitals to be brought online, building on the UN-backed Giga Initiative, and digital literacy skills training. An International Scientific Panel on AI and an Annual Global Dialogue on AI Governance will be established, and, by 2030, it is hoped that there will be global AI standards that benefit all.