WASHINGTON
\nThe rapid development of AI offers huge potential benefits to countries and people around the world, but also poses big risks, 40 leading scientists and experts said in the first report by a United Nations independent scientific panel on the technology.
\nThe report, to be presented to governments at an inaugural UN Global Dialogue on AI governance in Geneva July 6 to 7, offers the first global, independent scientific assessment of AI, with a fuller, comprehensive report planned next year.
\nMembers of the panel were drawn from every region of the world, and its members serve a three-year term, independent of any government, institution or company.
\nAccording to the report, policymakers need scientific evidence to govern AI but its capabilities are outpacing scientific understanding and governments\u2019 ability to adapt, with few methods available for controlling highly autonomous AI systems. Panel co-chair Yoshua Bengio also noted growing evidence of deceptive AI behaviour and said science could not guarantee AI will not cause catastrophic harm \u201ceither on its own or due to malicious users\u201d as capabilities increase.
\n\u201cThe potential benefits of AI are enormous,\u201d the report concluded. \u201cThe rapid, unchecked deployment of the technology at scale also presents considerable risks, including harms to the mental health of users, potential use as a destructive tool, impacts on social, economic and environmental systems, and challenges associated with controlling the technology.\u201d
\nIt further said that AI adoption has accelerated broadly, but unevenly, across countries and sectors. Globally, over a billion people now use conversational AI weekly, but adoption in developing countries lags.
\nIt noted that AI development is even more concentrated, with the US accounting for 75 per cent of the computing power among the world\u2019s top 500 AI supercomputers, and China 15pc.
\nAlthough more than 7,000 languages are spoken worldwide, current AI models are trained for only a small fraction and machine translation of some languages is riddled with errors that can affect health diagnoses and treatment decisions.
\nRisks include potential negative impacts on human rights, social systems and the environment, with AI-generated child sexual abuse material and deepfake-enabled sexual violence circulating more frequently.
\nAI also makes it easier to produce and target persuasive content at scale, contributing to a \u201cgradual erosion of information integrity that can weaken public trust, social cohesion and democratic deliberation\u201d.<\/p>\n
Most countries, including advanced economies, lack the technical expertise to assess the most capable new AI models or participate meaningfully in their governance, the report said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON The rapid development of AI offers huge potential benefits to countries and people around the world, but also poses big risks, 40 leading scientists and experts said in the first report by a United Nations independent scientific panel on the technology. The report, to be presented to governments at an inaugural UN Global Dialogue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554010,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-553992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n