UN approves 40-member AI panel despite strong US objections over governance authority

UN approves 40-member scientific panel on the impact of artificial intelligence over US objections

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly Thursday to approve a 40-member global scientific panel on the impacts and risks of artificial intelligence, with the United States strongly objecting. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who established the panel, called the adoption "a foundational step toward global scientific understanding of AI." "In a world where AI is racing ahead," he said, "this panel will provide what's been missing -- rigorous, independent scientific insight that enables all member states, regardless of their technological capacity, to engage on an equal footing." He has described it as the first fully independent global scientific body dedicated to bridging the knowledge gap in AI and assessing its real-world economic and social impacts. The vote in the 193-member assembly was 117-2, with the United States and Paraguay voting "no" and Tunisia and Ukraine abstaining. America's allies in Europe, Asia and elsewhere voted in favor along with Russia, China and many developing countries. U.S. Mission counselor Lauren Lovelace called the panel "a significant overreach of the U.N.'s mandate and competence" and said "AI governance is not a matter for the U.N. to dictate." As the world leader in AI, the United States is resolved to do all it can to accelerate AI innovation and build up its infrastructure, she said, and the Trump administration will support "like-minded nations working together to encourage the development of AI in line with our shared values." "We will not cede authority over AI to international bodies that may be influenced by authoritarian regimes seeking to impose their vision of controlled surveillance societies," Lovelace said, adding that the Trump administration is concerned about "the non-transparent way" the panel was chosen. Guterres said the 40 members were selected from more than 2,600 candidates after an independent review by the International Telecommunications Union, the U.N. Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies and UNESCO, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. They will serve for three-year terms. Members are predominantly AI experts but also come from other disciplines and include Maria Ressa, a Filipino journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 2021. There are two Americans on the panel: Vipin Kumar, a University of Minnesota professor focusing on AI, data mining and high-performance computing research, and Martha Palmer, a retired University of Colorado professor and linguistics expert whose research includes capturing the meaning of words for complex sentences in AI. There are two Chinese experts on the panel: Song Haitao, dean of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, and Wang Jian, an expert in cloud-computing technology at the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Ukraine said it abstained because it objected to Russia's Andrei Neznamov, an expert in AI regulation, ethics, and governance, being on the panel.

UN approves 'first-ever' AI panel despite US objections

Antonio Guterres, the UN's secretary-general, said the panel is a 'foundational step toward global scientific understanding of AI.' The UN appointed a 40-member global scientific panel this week that will study the risks of artificial intelligence (AI), despite strong opposition from the United States. The move comes as former employees at AI companies sounded the alarm about the technology. The UN's General Assembly voted 117-2 to approve the panel, with the United States and Paraguay voting no, and abstentions from Tunisia and Ukraine. Russia, China and European allies voted in favour. The experts on the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence (AI) will publish an annual report that synthesises and analyses AI's risks, opportunities and impacts in what the UN calls the "first global scientific body of its kind." The panel's adoption is a "foundational step toward global scientific understanding of AI," said Antonio Guterres, the UN's secretary-general. "In a world where AI is racing ahead," Guterres said, "this panel will provide what's been missing -- rigorous, independent scientific insight that enables all member states, regardless of their technological capacity, to engage on an equal footing." The UN vote comes as employees walk out of artificial intelligence companies due to concerns over their practices. Mrinank Sharma, Anthropic's former safety researcher, warned in an open letter that "the world is in peril," with the development of AI and other crises. While OpenAI's former top researcher, Zoe Hitzig, told the New York Times that she has "deep reservations" about the strategy that her former company is taking. Some of the world's most prominent figures in AI, such as Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, OpenAI's Sam Altman and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, have also warned about the risks of AI. The UN's 40 members were selected from more than 2,600 candidates after an independent review by several UN bodies and the International Telecommunications Union, according to Guterres. They will serve for three-year terms. Europe has 11 seats at the table: Joelle Barral of France, Melahat Bilge Demirkoz from Turkey, Finland's Anna Korhonen, Latvia's Aleksandra Korolova, Russia's Andrei Neznamov, Germany's Maximilian Nickel and Bernhard Scholkopf, Spain's Roman Orus, Austria's Johanna Pirker, Poland's Piotr Sankowski and Silvio Savarese from Italy. Lauren Lovelace, the US' representative, called the panel "a significant overreach of the UN's mandate and competence" and said "AI governance is not a matter for the UN to dictate." Instead, Lovelace asked the UN to focus on its "core missions," such as international peace and security, human rights and humanitarian assistance, instead of "attempting to regulate or stifle the development of cross-cutting ... technologies that will determine economic and strategic competition in the twenty-first century." US President Donald Trump has pushed for minimal AI regulation, where he aims to cut federal red tape and avoid a "patchwork" of state laws that could slow innovation. The US and China are considered neck-in-neck in the AI adoption race. Despite the US' opposition, they still have two representatives on the panel: Vipin Kumar, a University of Minnesota professor and Martha Palmer, a retired University of Colorado professor and linguistics expert.