UN Calls for Global Action on AI Governance
This post delves into the United Nations' recent call for global cooperation on AI governance, highlighting the critical need to mitigate risks and promote equitable access. A key call out in the report is the urgent need to nurture AI talent worldwide, ensuring that individuals and organisations are equipped to manage the transformative potential of AI while fostering equitable innovation and ethical governance.
Anastasia Nkhalamba
9/23/20242 min read
Last week, the United Nations released a landmark report on artificial intelligence (AI) governance, calling for a new international body to address the transformative potential and challenges it poses. The report proposes a framework for global cooperation to mitigate risks, promote equitable access, and nurture AI talent globally.
The Risks and Governance Challenges of AI
AI is revolutionising the fields of scientific research, energy, public health and agriculture, driving innovation at an unprecedented pace. However, the UN highlights concerns about equitable access to AI technologies, particularly between the Global North and South, which threatens to exacerbate the global digital divide.
In addition to questions of equity, AI’s potential for bias, surveillance and misinformation presents ethical challenges. The environmental impact of AI, particularly the energy consumption of large-scale models and supercomputers, is another pressing issue covered in the report. The UN stresses the urgency of establishing a global governance framework to address these risks and ensure that the benefits of AI are experienced fairly.
International Cooperation and Competition in AI Governance
The report calls for global collaboration in developing standards and frameworks for AI governance. This includes pooling scientific knowledge, facilitating data sharing, and creating a global AI office within the UN to coordinate efforts
A key priority is achieving equitable access, with suggestions for a global fund to distribute data resources and computational power to the Global South. However, aligning countries around a common approach to AI governance may prove difficult, especially amid concerns of an “AI arms race” involving the United States, China and the European Union.
These great powers are fiercely competing to dominate the development of AI, raising concerns about an existential threat to humanity. According to Harvard’s report on this issue, the AI arms race, driven by the rush to gain technological superiority, could lead to the deployment of unregulated and unsafe AI systems with potentially catastrophic consequences.
The report acknowledges the commercial and strategic competition surrounding AI, particularly in the development of AI training data sets and AI-powered tools. Despite these challenges, the report stresses that only global collective action can ensure AI governance promotes ethical innovation and mitigates risk.
Building Global AI Talent: The Key to Equitable Innovation
The UN report also emphasises the importance of nurturing AI talent worldwide. Building human capacity to understand the capabilities and limitations of AI is essential for driving innovation in diverse cultural and regional contexts. Among the report’s suggestions is the provision of online courses to university students, young researchers and public sector officials.
Take Action on AI Governance with the Right Talent
As AI continues to evolve and influence policy and governance, it is crucial to ensure that your organisation has the right talent to navigate these challenges. Joldan Consultancy specialises in recruiting top professionals for tech policy roles, including AI governance experts. We have the expertise to help you build the teams needed to lead your AI strategy - get in touch today to learn more.
