Speaking at the ¨AI for Good¨ Summit organized in Geneva by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), bringing together governments, civil society, UN agencies, AI innovators and investors, Guterres stressed that AI must benefit everyone, including the third of humanity who are still offline, and insisted on the need to urgently find consensus on what the guiding norms for AI deployment should be.
At the event, ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin called for global cooperation to “ensure AI reaches its full potential, while preventing and mitigating harms”.
In an ideal scenario, Ms. Bogdan-Martin said that we would be able to successfully harness AI to find cures for diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s, step up clean energy production and support farmers in boosting crop yields.
But a dystopian future was also possible, in which AI destroyed jobs and enabled an uncontrollable spread of disinformation, or in which only wealthy countries reaped the benefits of the technology, the ITU Secretary-General said.
The ITU chief stressed that the AI Summit was taking place at a “historic” moment when it was crucial to push for AI governance and ensure its inclusive, safe and responsible deployment.
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