United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres talked to reporters on Monday, June 12, backing a proposal for the creation of an international AI watchdog body like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), according to a report by Reuters. "Alarm bells over the latest form of artificial intelligence – generative AI – are deafening. And they are loudest from the developers who designed it," Guterres told reporters. "We must take those warnings seriously." He announced that the UN is planning to start working on a high-level AI advisory body to regularly review AI governance by the end of this year. Why it matters: In the recent past, we have seen ample discussion surrounding AI governance due to concerns about how this technology could be used to spread misinformation, could take away people’s jobs, and could encroach on copyright protection. In May this year, AI companies (OpenAI and IBM) in the US asked the authorities to be regulated, during a Senate subcommittee hearing. Soon after, top researchers and CEOs (including Geoffery Hinton, former AI researcher at Google, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman, and Kevin Scott, CTO of Microsoft) rang the alarm bells on the mass-extinction threat posed by AI. Why a global regulator is needed: In May, Open AI came out with an article about AI governance where they discussed how AI is equivalent to nuclear energy in the level of existential risk it poses. It also pointed out the eventual need for an AI regulatory body like IAEA, that could subject any…
You must be logged in to post a comment Login