In a race against time, humanity must control AI’s transformative power for global good while dodging significant risks, warned top UN official Doreen Bogdan-Martin at the AI for Good Global Summit. Amid extraordinary advancements, she stressed the need to safeguard against deepfake disinformation and cyber threats, especially with 2024’s pivotal elections.
Humanity is in a race against time to harness the colossal emerging power of artificial intelligence for the good of all, while averting dire risks, a top UN official said Thursday.
“We’ve let the genie out of the bottle,” said Doreen Bogdan-Martin, head of the United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
“We are in a race against time,” she told the opening of a two-day AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva.
“Recent developments in AI have been nothing short of extraordinary.”
The thousands gathered at the conference heard how advances in generative AI are already speeding up efforts to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as climate change, hunger and social care.
“I believe we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to guide AI to benefit all the world’s people,” Bogdan-Martin told AFP ahead of the summit.
But she lamented Thursday that one-third of humanity still remains completely offline and is “excluded from the AI revolution without a voice.”
“This digital and technological divide is no longer acceptable.”
Bogdan-Martin highlighted that AI holds “immense potential for both good and bad”, stressing that it was vital to “make AI systems safe”.
