Enhance your opportunities and limit the risks of Artificial Intelligence. This is the challenge with which the AI ??Advisory Body was born, presented this Thursday by the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres. A new body in which Carme Artigas, Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence of the Government of Spain, has been chosen to hold the position of co-president.
According to the organization, the creation of the new advisory body on Artificial Intelligence is a very relevant milestone in the UN’s efforts to address the global governance of this technology and is made up of 39 members.
Artigas has had AI in focus since taking office shortly before the outbreak of the Covid pandemic and has led a similar project in Spain by promoting the world’s first AI supervisory agency. In fact, the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union is promoting the regulation on AI with the intention of reaching an agreement this year.
“For developing economies, AI offers the ability to leapfrog obsolete technologies and services directly to the people who need them most. The transformative potential of AI for good is difficult to even comprehend. And Without entering into endless catastrophic scenarios, it is already clear that the malicious use of AI could undermine trust in society’s institutions, weaken social cohesion and threaten democracy itself,” Guterres acknowledged.
“I have called for a global, multi-stakeholder, multi-disciplinary conversation on the governance of AI, so that its benefits to humanity – all of humanity – are maximized and risks are contained and reduced,” he insisted.
The new initiative will foster an inclusive approach on a global scale, leveraging the unique convening power of the United Nations as a universal and inclusive forum on critical challenges. It will bring together experts from governments, the private sector, the research community, civil society and academia with a global, gender-balanced and interdisciplinary composition
The body’s immediate tasks include building a global scientific consensus on risks and challenges, helping to leverage AI for the Sustainable Development Goals, and strengthening international cooperation on AI governance. In turn, it will help bring together other existing and emerging initiatives on AI governance. It is expected to issue preliminary recommendations before the end of 2023 that will be the basis on which to work to draft final recommendations for the summer of 2024 prior to the celebration of the Future Summit.
