UN Secretary-General

The UNSG convenes international discussions, makes recommendations, and can influence international dialogue and policy-making processes on issues related to artificial intelligence (AI).

In his Strategy for New Technologies, Guterres has called for the responsible adoption of AI and other frontier technologies to achieve the sustainable development goals of the 2030 Agenda.

The Secretary-General also established UN Global Pulse, an initiative on big data and AI for development, humanitarian action, and peace. The initiative works to create an enabling environment for the mainstreaming of proven applications of big data and AI across the UN system. The initiative works with governments to create strategies for the ethical use of AI. Within UN Global Pulse, the Expert group on data governance and AI has been established. Its members advocate for privacy and a human-rights-centric approach to data and AI for purposes of sustainable development, humanitarian action, and peace.

The UNSG underscored the recommendation contained in the Final Report of the High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation that autonomous intelligent systems should be designed in ways that enable their decisions to be explained and humans to be accountable for their use. The Panel underlined that AI systems should comply with engineering and ethical standards, which should be developed using multistakeholder and multilateral approaches.

The UNSG is an advocate for a ban on lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS), stating that they are ‘bringing us into unacceptable moral and political territory’. He further stated that ‘machines with the power and discretion to take lives without human involvement are politically unacceptable, morally repugnant and should be prohibited by international law.’