technology
The report emphasizes the importance of “making AI systems safe” because AI “holds great potential for both good and bad.”
GENEVA (AFP) – Humanity is in a race against time to harness the enormous emerging power of artificial intelligence (AI) for the benefit of all while avoiding dire risks, a senior UN official said on Thursday.
“We have let the genie out of the lamp,” said Doreen Bogdan Martin, secretary-general of the UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
“We are in a race against time,” she said at the opening of the two-day Global Summit on AI for Good in Geneva. “The recent developments in AI have been nothing short of phenomenal.”
Thousands gathered at the conference heard how advances in generative AI are already accelerating efforts to solve some of the world's most pressing problems, including climate change, hunger and social welfare.
“I believe we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to harness AI for the benefit of people all over the world,” Bogdan Martin told AFP ahead of the summit.
But she lamented Thursday that a third of humanity remains completely offline and is “silently excluded from the AI revolution.”
“This digital and technology divide is no longer acceptable.”
Bogdan Martin emphasized that AI “has great potential for both good and bad” and stressed the importance of “making AI systems safe.”
She said this is especially important given that “2024 is the biggest election year in history” with dozens of countries, including the United States, voting.
She pointed to the “rise of sophisticated deepfake disinformation campaigns” and warned that “the misuse of AI threatens democracy, puts young people's mental health at risk and puts cybersecurity at risk.”
Other experts at Thursday's meeting agreed.
“We need to understand what we're heading for,” said Tristan Harris, a tech ethicist and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology.
He pointed to lessons learned from social media, which was initially touted as a way to connect people and give everyone a voice, but which has also led to addiction, the spread of misinformation, online harassment and an increase in mental health issues.
Harris warned that incentives for companies to adopt the technology risk dramatically increasing these negative impacts.
“The biggest thing driving Open AI and what Google is doing is really the race to gain market dominance,” he said.
In such a world, he said, “governance that moves at the speed of technology” is crucial.
Sam Altman, head of OpenAI, who has gained worldwide fame since OpenAI released ChatGPT in 2022, acknowledged the danger.
Speaking via video link, he told those gathered that “cybersecurity” was currently the biggest concern when it came to the negative impacts of the technology.
And looking further into the future, “given how powerful this technology is expected to become, some changes in the social contract will be necessary,” he said.
“I don't believe jobs will disappear, but I do believe the whole structure of society itself is open to some debate and restructuring.”
But overall, he argued, in light of how new technologies have evolved historically, AI systems are “generally considered to be safe and robust.”
While he welcomed discussions on regulation to stave off the short-term negative effects of AI, he warned that proposing regulations aimed at curbing future impacts would be “difficult.”
“We don't know how society and this technology will co-evolve,” he said.
Meanwhile, Bogdan Martin praised the recent “race to establish” safeguards and regulations around the use of AI.
The European Union announced on Wednesday the creation of an AI Agency to regulate artificial intelligence under a comprehensive new law.
“It is our responsibility to write the next chapter in the great story of humanity and technology and make it safe, inclusive and sustainable,” said Bogdan Martin.
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