A first UN Security Council meeting on the potential threats of artificial intelligence (AI) to international security will be the centrepiece of the UK’s presidency this month.
The July 18 meeting will include briefings by international AI experts and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who last month called the alarm bells over the most advanced form of AI “deafening”, and loudest from its developers.
He said: “These scientists and experts have called on the world to act, declaring AI an existential threat to humanity on a par with the risk of nuclear war.”
In September, he announced plans to appoint an advisory board on artificial intelligence and has said he would react favourably to a new UN agency on AI, suggesting the mix of knowledge and regulatory powers of the International Atomic Energy Agency as a model.
Announcing the meeting, UK ambassador Dame Barbara Woodward said the UK wants to encourage “a multilateral approach to managing both the huge opportunities and the risks that artificial intelligence holds for all of us”, stressing that “this is going to take a global effort”.
She stressed the benefits are huge, citing AI’s potential to help UN development programmes, improve humanitarian aid operations, assist peacekeeping operations and support conflict prevention, including by collecting and analysing data.
While acknowledging the serious security questions which must be addressed, she said: “It could potentially help us close the gap between developing countries and developed countries.”
Chaired by UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, she said the Security Council meeting will provide an opportunity to listen to expert views on AI and start a discussion among the 15 council members on its implications.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced that the UK will host a summit on AI later this year, which Dame Barbara said will enable “a truly global multilateral discussion”.
