UN Leaders and Geoffrey Hinton Call for Urgent AI Regulation

Geoffrey Hinton, a Nobel laureate and AI pioneer, called for urgent regulation of artificial intelligence during the Digital World Conference: AI for Social Development. Hinton compared the current state of unregulated AI to a fast car lacking a steering wheel, suggesting that rapid technological advances require immediate guidance to avoid disaster.

These warnings coincided with United Nations meetings in Geneva and Madrid focused on AI governance. International Telecommunication Union Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin and UNCTAD Acting Secretary-General Pedro Manuel Moreno warned that AI power is concentrated within a few firms and Global North economies. They cautioned that this trend risks a second great divergence, widening the gap between nations that produce AI and those that merely consume it.

In Madrid, the UN’s Independent International Scientific Panel on AI held its first in-person meeting. Co-chair Maria Ressa stated that AI tools are being deployed for narrative warfare intended to undermine democratic institutions. The findings from this scientific panel will inform the UN’s Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance, which is scheduled to take place in Geneva this July.