UN OKs Scientific Panel on AI Impact   02/13 06:20

   

   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.