A foray into uncharted territory
Even as Indian high technologists face new, potentially insurmountable hurdles with US President Donald Trump imposing a $100,000 fee for H-1B visas, the United Nations is trying to make the sharing of artificial intelligence fair and affordable for all nations. Indian techies are among the world leaders in exploring new frontiers of AI, and India is widely regarded as an emerging powerhouse of AI development.
That is partly because of its vast data resources and algorithm developers, as well as its focus on developing the microchips and other materials, including abundant electricity, to become a self-contained AI nation. It also has a track record of digital innovation through achievements like the UPI financial backbone and the unique identity system underpinning the Aadhar card.
The ongoing UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York held a high-level meeting on 25 September to launch a global dialogue on artificial intelligence governance, following the adoption of the UN’s Global Digital Compact last year, which was the world’s first universal agreement on AI governance.
“The question is no longer whether AI will transform our world – it already has,” UN chief Antonio Guterres told delegates. “The question is whether we will govern this transformation together – or let it govern us”.
The risk of AI transforming geopolitics and human lifestyles in undesirable ways is genuinely great. It deserves urgent co-operation among all countries through the UN system since it is the world's only universal forum dedicated to giving equal voice and equal rights to all countries.
Indian experts and diplomats could make invaluable contributions to building safe, secure and trustworthy AI systems grounded in international law, human rights and effective supervision. Amandeep Gill, a talented former Indian diplomat, is already deeply involved in the exercise as a UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technologies.
The new AI initiative should promote interoperability between governance regimes by aligning rules, reducing barriers and boosting economic cooperation. It should encourage open innovation accessible to all and guided by shared standards and common purpose. The initiative should create a space where governments, industry and civil society can advance common solutions together.
With such considerations in mind, the UN is also setting up a 40-member International Independent Scientific Panel on AI and has launched a call for candidates from all regions and disciplines. It will provide independent insights into the opportunities, risks and impacts associated with AI.
But the road forward is unlikely to be smooth because the entire UN system is beleaguered by Trump’s onslaught on almost everything it does, including its relevance, utility, purposes, procedures and functioning. He is also withholding almost all US funding of the UN in New York and its agencies around the world. "Your countries are going to hell,” Trump told world leaders, especially those from Europe, in his address to the UNGA on 23 September. For Europeans, he identified illegal immigration by people from other cultures and expensive energy as the main drivers to hell.
His emphasis on energy costs was apt because AI is driving a global revolution that is changing the fundamentals of industrial and economic activities. It will require nearly four times the current availability of electricity in a world where more than half the population does not have reliable access to electricity or none at all.
In these circumstances, the UN is making a valiant foray into complex, uncharted and expensive territory with its AI governance initiative. Especially as funding the desired equitable AI access may be nearly impossible at a time when the world’s richest countries are pouring wealth into new arms races. There is a growing belief that the intractable Ukraine/Russia conflict and Israel’s devastating war against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran could turn into huge regional and then global conflagrations.
For his part, Trump, without whose participation the AI initiative would be hard-pressed to find sufficient funding, laid into the UN with both fists. He questioned the UN’s purpose partly because it was unable to help with his peace-making in Ukraine and Gaza.
“What is the purpose of the United Nations?” he asked. “All they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up. The United Nations can be great again, but only if it lives up to its charter: peace through strength, not weakness through bureaucracy. Let's work together, nation to nation, for a world of free, prosperous, and secure peoples.”