Artificial intelligence is rare bright spot for global governance

Multilateralism has had a difficult time lately, especially at the United Nations. The UN Security Council couldn’t exactly stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Cease-fires in Gaza and Lebanon remain elusive. Subsequent COP summits have failed to raise the bar enough, let alone spur concrete action, to meet global climate targets. The UN’s own Sustainable Development Goals aren’t just off-track – they’re backtracking. Indeed, the UN’s values of peace, security and cooperation feel very foreign at a time when multiple wars are raging, protectionism is on the rise and the world is splitting into coalitions and blocs.

But even amid a geopolitical recession, global cooperation is still possible. On Sept. 22-23, the UN General Assembly held its first-ever Summit of the Future. It was, among other things, a test of the UN’s ability to tackle one of the world’s biggest transnational challenges: artificial intelligence. Surprising as it may be, the UN passed the test.

It is no exaggeration to say that artificial intelligence has spurred one of the fastest and most robust policy responses in living memory. Barely a year ago, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres invited stakeholders to recommend how the world might govern AI in the service of all humanity. He knew that much like the world’s initial response to climate change, ambitions to govern AI ran the risk of falling flat. Too many existing approaches were fragmented, and most left out the global South. 118 countries were party to no AI governance framework at all.

Together, we served as rapporteurs for the Secretary General’s High-Level Advisory Body on AI (HLAB), established to meet this worthy challenge. Our body’s 39 members come from every continent, reflecting the world’s diversity, and comprise representatives from government, academia, civil society and tech companies.

This was the first genuinely global effort to govern AI in the name of the entire world. And we are pleased that several of our recommendations have been taken up in the Global Digital Compact, a comprehensive framework for global governance of digital technology and AI that was adopted by UN member-states at the Summit for the Future on Sept. 22. This agreement was a feat of global cooperation, spanning geopolitical divides despite all the very real differences that separate the United States, China and Europe, the West and the global South, and governments and the private sector (especially technology companies).

Consider one of our recommendations that has been approved in principle for implementation: the establishment of an International Scientific Panel on AI. We started from the premise that to govern an issue as complex as AI, we should have a common understanding of the technology and its potential risks and impacts across countries and cultures. We learned this lesson the hard way from climate change. While many now debate how to address the climate crisis, there is no serious debate over whether we should address it; the evidence provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is too strong. A similar intergovernmental panel on AI would undertake the difficult but fundamental work of analyzing the ongoing developments in AI technology, giving policymakers a factual and independent foundation to inform goals, debates and policy decisions.

But what we’re most enthusiastic about is the prospect of ensuring that AI benefits everyone.

Unlike climate change, where there are zero-sum politics and serious short-term tradeoffs between lowering emissions, fostering economic growth and achieving equity (with powerful vested interests that oppose a post-carbon transition), AI is the rare transnational issue whose politics are positive-sum. The widespread availability of AI, if shared safely and governed to respect international law and fundamental freedoms, shouldn’t existentially threaten incumbent governments and companies. Instead, it should catalyze win-win opportunities.

There is tremendous demand for technologies like AI – and excitement over its potential to help solve all sorts of objectives as laid out in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. From public health and education to economic growth and climate mitigation, AI may be a game-changing technology. But without the infrastructure and mechanisms to oversee its transformative growth, this opportunity will foster further global divergence, with the poorest and most vulnerable populations once again left behind. We are determined for that not to be the case.

That’s why in addition to a common knowledge base, we have recommended initiatives that enhance all countries and communities’ access to AI. From talent to standards to data and funding, the UN and its partners can help address gaps in resources and infrastructure to ensure no one is left behind in the AI revolution.

There are those, of course, who question the UN’s role in governing AI. To be sure, some AI governance must take place at the nation-state level. Much is also being done by the technology companies themselves that develop the AI models. But like the internet before it, AI’s opportunities are a global public good (as is AI safety). The UN is the only truly global body with the legitimacy to convene the world’s governments and AI stakeholders and the ability to guarantee any resulting agreements. That starts with getting the world on the same page – not to compel governance, but to align around the characteristics, nature and scale of the opportunity and challenges of AI. With the right vision, tools and political leadership, we can deploy the resources to ensure that AI lives up to its promise.

From climate change to public health to nuclear proliferation, the world has turned to the UN to solve its most complex global problems. Painful stories of armed conflict, humanitarian disasters, environmental crises and economic woes highlight the international community’s failure to rise to the challenge. But as we face our most revolutionary and potentially disruptive technology yet, the Global Digital Compact proves that there is still hope for multilateralism in a geopolitically fragmented world.