A senior UN official stated on Thursday that humanity is running out of time to harness the enormous potential of artificial intelligence for the benefit of all while avoiding grave threats.
“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.”
At the conference, which drew thousands of attendees, speakers discussed how developments in generative AI are already accelerating attempts to address some of the most urgent global issues, like famine, climate change, 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”.
