UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres recently warned that artificial intelligence could pose a risk to global peace and security, calling on all member states to urgently set up guardrails to keep the technology in check.
“It is clear that AI will have an impact on every area of our lives,” Guterres said at the first UN Security Council meeting on the topic.
“Generative AI has enormous potential for good and evil at scale,” he added, noting that while it could help end poverty or cure cancer, technology could as have “very serious consequences for global peace and security.”
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, whose country currently holds the rotating Security Council presidency, said AI “will affect the work of this council. It could enhance or disrupt global strategic stability.”
“It challenges our fundamental assumptions about defense and deterrence. It poses moral questions about accountability for lethal decisions on the battlefield,” Cleverly added, whose government will host an AI summit this year.
Guterres asked member states to put in place a legally binding pact to “prohibit lethal autonomous weapons systems” by the end of 2026.
While AI can be used to identify patterns of violence or monitor ceasefires, Guterres said he warned that its use by terrorists or governments with ill intent could cause “horrific levels of death and destruction.”
He called for a working group to develop options for global AI governance by year’s end, and also reiterated his support for a United Nations entity to support efforts to govern the use of AI, modeled after the International Atomic Energy Agency or the International Civil Aviation Organization.
By now, everyone knows that artificial intelligence has the potential to be a highly effective tool for either good or evil. World leaders and governments must now act quickly to put in the necessary safeguards to ensure that it is used properly, through an international system of governance where monitoring, enforcement, and accountability can stop those with evil intentions when it comes to the use of AI.*
