“If you’ve ever been out in a car that didn’t have brakes, boy, you’re in trouble if you go down a hill,” he told delegates. “But the problem is even bigger if there is no steering wheel.”
His comments came during a busy week for AI policymaking, as governments and UN panels intensified discussions on governance, inclusion and risk management, amid the growing integration of artificial intelligence into the global economy and society.
Those who have and those who have not
The pace of growth of AI is astonishing. According to the UN report on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Technology and Innovation Report 2025, The global AI market is projected to grow from $189 billion in 2023 to $4.8 trillion in 2033.an economy larger than Japan’s, built in a single decade.
However, the ability to create and shape it remains in the hands of a few economies and companies, warned UNCTAD Acting Secretary-General Pedro Manuel Moreno at the Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD), also meeting this week.
This concentration risks deepening global inequalities. Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary-General of the United Nations International Telecommunication Union (ITU), noted that adoption of generative AI in the industrialized ‘Global North’ is growing almost twice as fast as in the developing ‘Global South’.
“If left unaddressed, this is a second major divergence: widening the gap between countries shaping artificial intelligence and those simply consuming it.” – said Ms. Bogdan-Martin, adding that no country or organization alone can close the gaps in infrastructure, investment and capacity.
This week’s flurry of international activity on AI and digital technology in Geneva and beyond reflects the international push to ensure that all countries can benefit from and regulate Artificial Intelligence as it increasingly shapes our economies, societies and daily lives.
The different areas of discussion are becoming clear.
While the Commission on Science and Technology for Development focuses on global digital policy formulation, debates at the AI for Social Development Conference underlined the need for transparent, accountable and rights-based AI governance to address risks such as bias, opaque algorithms, and the concentration of large volumes of data in the hands of a few privileged massive corporations.
Participants at the Global Conference, convened by UNRISD and the international NGO World Digital Techology Academy, examined the growing role of AI in social protection, labor markets, education and the green energy transition, while emphasizing the importance of protecting vulnerable groups and ensuring that the benefits of technological change are shared more fairly.
Data-driven approach
Any proposal for AI governance must be data-driven and this is the fundamental work of the UN Independent International Scientific Panel on AI, which convened its first face-to-face meeting in Madrid on Wednesday.
Opening the Scientific Panel’s first in-person meeting in Madrid, co-chair Maria Ressa explained the group’s mandate to provide an independent, scientific and authoritative assessment of how AI systems are shaping societies.
Ressa, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Filipino campaigning journalist, warned that increasingly powerful artificial intelligence tools are accelerating the weakening of democratic systems using “narrative warfare” in which falsehoods are manufactured and amplified at scale; the weakening of institutions such as the media and the courts; and, ultimately, strategic corruption once accountability is eroded.
Its findings will inform discussions at another key UN initiative on AI: the UN Global Dialogue on the Governance of Artificial Intelligence, which will meet in July, also in Geneva.
The findings of the Scientific Panel, which Ms. Ressa co-chairs with renowned Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, will inform discussions of another key UN initiative on AI: the UN Global Dialogue on the Governance of Artificial Intelligence, which will meet in July, also in Geneva.
The Global Dialogue brings together all 193 United Nations Member States, the private sector, civil society, academia and the technology world to share best practices and build common approaches to AI governance.
“The policy conversation will be based on science and evidence, joint perspectives and scientific perspectives from a multidisciplinary lens from around the world.” says UN special envoy for digital and emerging technologies, Amandeep Gill.
“This is what policy debates should be, and the UN is very proud to facilitate this first confluence of science and policy in a fast-paced emerging technology.”