AI MAY FUEL GLOBAL INEQUALITY WITHOUT JOINT RULES, GLOBAL GOVERNANCE — UN

The United Nations has warned that artificial intelligence could deepen global inequality unless countries work together to establish international rules that ensure the technology benefits everyone.

This is as governments, technology companies and experts gather in Geneva for the first UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance.

The two-day meeting, which opened on Monday, comes amid growing concerns that the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence is outpacing governments’ ability to regulate it, raising fears that developing countries could be left behind while a handful of nations dominate the technology.

“The AI divide is real,” said Ambassador Egriselda López of El Salvador, co-chair of the Global Dialogue.

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She said while some countries have advanced infrastructure, research capacity and technical skills, many others are still struggling with basic connectivity and public infrastructure, limiting their ability to benefit from AI.

A Sunday statement on its webiste titled, “Global push for AI governance amid warnings of ‘catastrophic harm’”, revealed all these.

Ambassador Rein Tammsaar of Estonia, the Dialogue’s other co-chair, described artificial intelligence as a potential “great equalizer” capable of boosting productivity, economic development, healthcare and scientific innovation. However, he warned that without inclusive governance, countries with limited access to AI risk falling further behind.

“The frontier developers are basically concentrated in two countries,” Tammsaar said, referring to the United States and China. “This leaves other countries with a lot of questions.”

He added that many developing countries fear the pace of AI development is so rapid that they may never catch up if the technology remains concentrated in a few economies.

The Geneva discussions are being informed by the first report of the UN’s Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence, a 40-member body of experts from around the world established to provide impartial scientific advice on AI’s opportunities and risks.

The report warns that although AI has enormous potential to improve lives, governments currently lack effective national and international governance tools to manage its risks.

Yoshua Bengio, co-chair of the scientific panel, said artificial intelligence is approaching or surpassing human capabilities in many fields while evolving faster than scientific understanding and regulatory frameworks.

“We don’t have the right national or even international governance tools, and we don’t have good ways to steer the benefits so that they are shared by everyone,” Bengio said.

The panel also cautioned that growing evidence of deceptive AI behaviour means science cannot yet guarantee that increasingly capable AI systems will not cause catastrophic harm, whether through misuse or malicious actors.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa, who co-chairs the panel, said AI has already accelerated the spread of false information online, threatening democratic institutions and public trust.

“The world cannot govern what it cannot understand,” Ressa said, urging governments to act before the costs of inaction become even greater.

The Global Dialogue marks the first United Nations platform dedicated specifically to AI governance and is expected to shape future international discussions on standards, oversight and equitable access to one of the world’s fastest-growing technologies.