The Biden administration has poured cold water on United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ aspiration of establishing new global institutions to govern the use of artificial intelligence, saying the world body should instead focus on strengthening existing international entities that promote lifesaving initiatives, develop ethical norms, and erect guardrails around the misuse of the transformative technology.
“It would be premature to call for establishing new U.N. governance mechanisms without a clearer understanding and fulsome consensus on where may be gaps in the ability of existing U.N. agencies to address AI,” according to a confidential United States paper distributed to foreign governments at the U.N. that was seen by Devex. “It is our view that any proposals for new processes, panels, funds, partnerships, and/or mechanisms are premature.”
The blunt U.S. message deals a severe blow to the U.N. chief’s efforts to place the world body at the center of global efforts to harness AI to combat poverty and inequality while erecting safeguards around a technology that is advancing at a disorienting pace and which holds the power to fundamentally alter the way societies grapple with everything from infectious diseases to economic development and war.