United Nations: Call for global 'red lines' on artificial intelligence

According to a VNA correspondent in Europe, on September 22, at the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York (USA), European lawmakers, along with Nobel laureates, former heads of state and leading researchers on artificial intelligence (AI), called for binding international rules to combat the most dangerous applications of AI.

The initiative calls on governments to agree by 2026 on “red lines” for AI features that are considered dangerous under all circumstances. It doesn’t offer specific measures, but it suggests some basic prohibitions, such as preventing AI systems from launching nuclear attacks, conducting mass surveillance, or impersonating humans.

The scope of the campaign is unprecedented, with more than 200 prominent figures and 70 organizations from politics , science, society and industry backing the call. Among those signing the proposal are former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta, former Irish President Mary Robinson (now the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights), members of the European Parliament (EP), 10 Nobel laureates and technology leaders such as the co-founder of OpenAI and the CTO of Google.

The signatories assert that without global standards, humanity risks facing threats posed by AI, from technologically engineered pandemics and disinformation campaigns to large-scale human rights abuses and humans losing control over advanced systems.

The move comes amid growing concerns about the impact of AI on the real world. In one notable example, leading chatbots, including Google's ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, have given inconsistent answers to questions about suicide - which are believed to exacerbate mental health crises.

Several suicides have been linked to conversations with AI systems. Yoshua Bengio, one of the so-called “godfathers” of AI, has stressed that the race to develop ever more powerful models creates risks that societies are ill-prepared to deal with.

European Union (EU) regulations on AI are welcome, but a patchwork of national and EU AI rules will not be enough to regulate a technology that is designed to cross borders, according to supporters of the initiative. They call for the creation of an independent body or organization to enforce those rules.

While countries like the US, China and EU members are drafting their own AI regulations, the signatories say only a global agreement can ensure common standards are adopted and enforced.

Supporters hope negotiations on binding bans can begin quickly, to prevent what Ahmet Üzümcü, former director-general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, described as “irreversible damage to humanity”./.

(TTXVN/Vietnam+)

Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/lien-hop-quoc-loi-keu-goi-ve-lan-ranh-do-toan-cau-doi-voi-tri-tue-nhan-tao-post1063499.vnp