UN body urges ‘globally inclusive and distributed’ AI governance

A United Nations (UN) advisory body on artificial intelligence (AI) is urging governments to collaborate on the creation of a “globally inclusive and distributed architecture” to govern the technology’s use.

Formally set up in October 2023 to analyse international governance of the technology, the UN’s High-level Advisory Body on AI has published a report outlining its blueprint for addressing AI-related risks and how the technology’s transformative potential can be shared globally.

“The imperative of global governance, in particular, is irrefutable,” it said in the executive summary. “AI’s raw materials, from critical minerals to training data, are globally sourced. General-purpose AI, deployed across borders, spawns manifold applications globally. The accelerating development of AI concentrates power and wealth on a global scale, with geopolitical and geo-economic implications.

“Moreover, no one currently understands all of AI’s inner workings enough to fully control its outputs or predict its evolution. Nor are decision makers held accountable for developing, deploying or using systems they do not understand. Meanwhile, negative spillovers and downstream impacts resulting from such decisions are also likely to be global.”

It added that although national governments and regional organisations will be crucial to controlling the use of AI, “the very nature of the technology itself – transboundary in structure and application – necessitates a global approach”.

The Advisory Body has therefore made a number of recommendations to address current gaps in AI governance arrangements, and is “calling on all governments and stakeholders” to foster the development and protection of human rights.  

These recommendations include the creation of an independent international scientific panel on AI, which should be made up of diverse multidisciplinary experts in the field serving in their personal capacity on a voluntary basis, and launching a bi-annual intergovernmental and multi-stakeholder policy dialogue on AI governance that could take place on the margins of existing UN meetings.

It further proposed creating an “AI standards panel” to develop and maintain a register of definitions and applicable standards for evaluating AI systems; setting up a “global fund for AI to put a floor under the AI divide”, which should be managed by a new independent governance structure; and developing a global AI data framework that institutes “market-shaping data stewardship and exchange mechanisms” to enable “flourishing local AI ecosystems globally”.

According to Wendy Hall – a regius professor of computer science at the University of Southampton and the only British expert on the Advisory Body – current global efforts to establish AI governance are insufficient.

“We are already seeing the impact of AI breakthroughs across health, energy controls, food production and education,” she said. “Artificial intelligence must be allowed to develop for the good of humanity – but, without governance, it has potential to evolve in ways that would be harmful to society. At the very least, we hope this report will stimulate meaningful conversations and debate about global governance.

“We desperately need a global approach that will address the challenges of AI and ensure that it benefits everyone – not just the few nations leading its development,” said Hall.

A UN draft resolution promoting the use of AI in sustainable development and the protection of human rights was previously backed by over 120 member states in April 2024.

While it aimed to “bridge the artificial intelligence and other digital divides between and within countries” by encouraging member states, the private sector, civil society, research organisations and the media “to develop and support regulatory and governance approaches and frameworks related to safe, secure and trustworthy artificial intelligence systems”, the US-led resolution was non-binding.

AI governance is not a global conversation

In January 2024 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, UN secretary general António Guterres accused technology companies and governments of pursuing their own narrow interests in AI “with a clear disregard” for human rights, privacy and other social consequences, likening its unregulated development to the escalating risks posed by the climate crisis. 

Aside from calling on the world’s business and political elites to rein in the “runaway” development of AI, Guterres also urged reform of the international system established after World War II so that effective action can be taken on global challenges.

Emphasising the stark power disparities throughout the international system as a major barrier to progress on both AI and climate change, Guterres noted, for example, that many member states were under colonial rule when the UN was set up, and therefore have “minimal weight” in the discussions taking place today.

In its report, the AI Advisory Body said that while there is no shortage of documents and dialogues focused on AI governance – with hundreds of guides, frameworks and principles being adopted by governments, companies, consortiums and international organisations over recent years – none have a truly global reach, leading to problems of representation, coordination and implementation.

Noting that “whole parts of the world have been left out of international AI governance conversations”, the report cites the fact that just seven countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US) are party to all of the non-UN AI governance initiatives sampled by the report, while 118 countries (mainly from the Global South) are party to none.  

“Equity demands that more voices play meaningful roles in decisions about how to govern technology that affects us,” it said. “The concentration of decision-making in the AI technology sector cannot be justified; we must also recognise that historically, many communities have been entirely excluded from AI governance conversations that impact them.”

To ensure closer and more equitable international collaboration on AI governance, the Advisory Body has proposed creating “a light, agile structure as an expression of coherent effort: an AI office in the United Nations Secretariat, close to the Secretary-General, working as the ‘glue’ to unite the initiatives proposed here efficiently and sustainably”.