He urged the international community to build a future “where policies are as smart as the technology that aims to drive them.”
New expert panel
The Secretary-General noted that “AI innovation is moving at the speed of light, outpacing our collective ability to fully understand it, let alone control it.”
He emphasized that “If we want AI to serve humanity, policy cannot be based on guesswork,” which underlines the need for “facts we can trust – and share – across countries and sectors.”
For this reason, the UN is developing mechanisms that put science at the center of international cooperation on AI, starting with a recently appointed body that brings together forty leading experts in the field.
The Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence The aim is to help close “the AI knowledge gap” and assess the real impact of these new technologies on economies and societies, so that countries can act with the same clarity regardless of their level of AI capability.
Accelerating progress, anticipating risks
“The panel will provide a shared foundational analysis – helping Member States move from philosophical debates to technical coordination; and anchoring choices in evidence,” he said.
The UN chief was adamant that AI’s science-led governance is “not a brake on progress” but rather “an accelerator for solutions.”
It will help countries identify where AI “can do the most good and the fastest,” he said, and “provide a way to do that make progress safer, fairer and more widely shared.”
Furthermore, the international community will be able to anticipate the consequences of AI at an early stage, such as risks for children or the labor market. In this way, “countries can prepare, protect and invest in people.”
Dangers of fragmentation
He noted that international cooperation is difficult today, amid strained trust and growing technological rivalry.
“Without a common baseline, fragmentation wins – with different regions operating under incompatible policies and technical standards,” he said, which will only “increase costs, weaken security and deepen divisions.”
The Secretary-General said countries can align their “technical baselines”, led by the Independent Panel and another UN initiative, the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, to be held in Geneva in May.
Meaningful human supervision
Before concluding, he stated that while “science informs,” human control over AI “must be a technical reality – not a slogan.”
This requires “meaningful human oversight of every high-stakes decision – in justice, healthcare, lending” and also “clear accountability – so that responsibility is never outsourced to an algorithmhe said.
“People need to understand how decisions are made, challenge them – and get answers.”
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