The head of the United Nations called on Monday for a global governance system to shape artificial intelligence for the good of humanity, warning against letting the technology “vibe code” our own future.
With AI advancing at “breakneck speed,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that “an experiment is being directed at our societies, without a plan and without consent.”
“This is not sustainable,” he insisted, speaking in Geneva at the opening of the first Global Dialogue on AI Governance.
The two-day event is bringing together more than 4,000 participants, representing governments, technology companies, academia and civil society, to launch a comprehensive discussion on how to best harness a technology that is already rapidly transforming our world.
“The question is whether we will shape this transformation together, or whether we will let it shape us,” Guterres said at the meeting.
He warned that AI systems were “no longer tools waiting for instructions”.
“They’re writing code, operating online and making choices with less and less human oversight,” he said.
“Our institutions are built to govern machines that follow commands. They are not ready for machines that decide.”
Guterres expressed concern about how AI was obscuring what is true and what is false.
He also warned that there was a growing tendency to leave important tasks to technology and blindly trust the results.
So-called “vibe coding,” or using AI to tell a machine what you want instead of coding it yourself, “could do wonders,” he admitted.
“But we can’t code the truth. We can’t code the future of humanity.”
– Main risks –
Another risk noted by Guterres was the concentration of power in a small number of AI companies and in a small number of countries.
Most countries “have had no say in the decisions that will shape their future,” he warned.
Countries, he said, now face a stark choice, “between governing by model and moving by default.”
The UN chief highlighted the potential of AI technologies for everything from accelerating development to improving healthcare and providing wider access to education.
But he insisted that developments must be guided by several key priorities, including security and respect for human rights, to ensure that people everywhere reap the benefits.
It called for “common methods to assess and verify risks” and jointly agreed standards, particularly to ensure the safety of children accessing AI systems.
“We don’t let medicine reach a child until it’s proven safe. We test every toy,” Guterres noted.
He called for a child safety pledge from AI, asking companies to prove that any system accessible to children is safe and has zero tolerance for sexual abuse.
Systems must also connect any child showing signs of distress with real human support, he said.
“No child should be a guinea pig for unregulated AI,” he insisted.
– ‘Killer Robots’ –
Increasing AI capacity and access in developing countries was also essential, he said, to ensure that the existing, deep digital divide does not “harden into an AI divide”.
Guterres said he would ask the UN General Assembly to create a Global Fund for AI, “to build affordable skills, data and computing power everywhere”.
General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock said it was “crystal clear” that the fund would be created, but did not give specific amounts.
“In a world of billions and trillions, money is hardly a challenge,” she told reporters, adding that “the main challenge is that it is spent (for) the good of all.”
The UN chief, meanwhile, said his biggest concern revolved around AI in military settings, and in particular so-called lethal autonomous weapons systems.
“Let’s call them what they are: killer robots,” he said.
“Machines select and engage their target and take on a life, without human control and judgement.
“This is morally repugnant… and must be prohibited by international law.”
Guterres stressed the urgency of deploying AI defenses.
“We may be the last generation capable of setting the terms on which humanity and machines coexist,” he said.
“The door is still open. It won’t stay open long.”
No concrete decisions are expected from the Geneva event, but dialogue co-chair Egriselda Lopez told reporters it would lay good “foundations” for the way forward, with a second dialogue planned in New York next year.
