A U.N. meeting titled “AI for Good Global Summit” begins in Geneva on Thursday seeking ways to advise the globalist organization on “governance issues” alongside efforts to control the spread of artificial intelligence (AI) and human augmentation.
Some 3,000 experts from companies like Microsoft and Amazon as well as academics and NGO representatives are expected to take part alongside 40 U.N. sister agencies, all co-convened by the Government of Switzerland.
They will be joined by dozens of robots, including several humanoids like Ai-Da, the first ultra-realistic robot artist; Ameca, the world’s most advanced life-like robot; the humanoid rock singer Desdemona; and Grace, the most advanced healthcare robot, AFP reports.
“This technology is moving fast,” cautioned Doreen Bogdan-Martin, head of the International Telecommunication Union, the U.N.’s information and communications technology agency that convened the summit, echoing the warnings of others who see AI as fundamentally changing the world we live in – and not necessarily for the better.
“It’s a real opportunity for the world’s leading voices on AI to come together on the global stage and to address governance issues,” she told reporters. “Doing nothing is not an option. Humanity is dependent upon it. So we have to engage and try and ensure a responsible future with AI.”
She said the summit would examine possible frameworks and guardrails to support safe AI use while examining proposals for global interventions by the U.N. to control its use and ensure humanity is protected.
The AFP report sets out listed participants include Amazon’s chief technology officer Werner Vogels, Google DeepMind chief operating officer Lila Ibrahim and former Spain football captain Iker Casillas — who suffered a heart attack in 2019 and now advocates for AI use in heart attack prevention.
The Biden administration has already sought to intervene in the technology’s rapid rise.
In May the White House announced a plan to crack down on AI with Biden naming Vice President Kamala Harris as “AI Czar” in charge of the new initiative, as Breitbart News reported.
White House chief of staff Jeff Zients’ office is now developing a set of actions the federal government can take regarding AI, according to the White House.
The move comes as AI proponents hail the technology for how it can transform society, including work, healthcare and creative pursuits, while others worry over its potential to subvert democracy when in the wrong hands or simply replace humans in the work place.
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Matthew Perdie, Jack Knudsen“We’re kind of in a perfect storm of suddenly having this powerful new technology — I don’t think it’s super-intelligent — being spread very widely and empowered in our lives, and we’re really not prepared,” serial AI entrepreneur Gary Marcus told AFP ahead of the Geneva meeting.
“We’re at a critical moment in history when we can either get this right and build the global governance we need, or get it wrong and not succeed and wind up in a bad place where a few companies control the fates of many, many people without sufficient forethought,” he said.
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