STOCKHOLM: An artificial-intelligence advisory body at the United Nations on Thursday released its final report proposing seven recommendations to address AI-related risks and gaps in governance.
The UN last year created a 39-member advisory body to address issues in the international governance of AI. The recommendations will be discussed during a UN summit held in September.
The advisory body called for the establishment of a panel to provide impartial and reliable scientific knowledge about AI and address information asymmetries between AI labs and the rest of the world.
Since the release of Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, the use of AI has spread rapidly, raising concerns about fueling misinformation, fake news and infringement of copyrighted material.
Only a handful of countries have created laws to govern the spread of AI tools. The European Union has been ahead of the rest by passing a comprehensive AI Act compared with the United States’ approach of voluntary compliance while China has aimed to maintain social stability and state control.
The United States was among about 60 countries that endorsed a “blueprint for action” to govern responsible use of AI in the military on Sept. 10, while China did not support the legally non-binding document.
With the development of AI in the hands of a few multinational companies, there is a danger that the technology could be imposed on people without them having a say in how it is used, the UN said in a statement.
It also recommended a new policy dialogue on AI governance, creating an AI standards exchange and a global AI capacity development network to boost governance capacities.
Among other proposals, the UN wants a global AI fund to be established, which would address gaps in capacity and collaboration. It also advocates the formation of a global AI data framework to ensure transparency and accountability.
Finally, the UN report proposed setting up a small AI office to support and coordinate the implementation of these proposals.

WASHINGTON: China presents the top challenge to the United States in all of its history, surpassing the Cold War, a top US official said Wednesday, as he urged Europe to get tougher on Beijing.
Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, a key architect of a 15-year push for the United States to reorient its foreign policy toward Asia, also urged greater US investment in advanced technology to compete better with China.
“There is a recognition that this is the most significant challenge in our history,” Campbell told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“Frankly, the Cold War pales in comparison to the multifaceted challenges that China presents,” he said.
“It’s not just a military challenge; it’s across the board. It is in the Global South. It is in technology. We need to step up our game across the board.”
President Joe Biden’s administration has been pressing China about technology exports to Russia that US officials say have allowed Moscow to ramp up military production for its war in Ukraine.
“The challenge is, we’ve got to get more support here on this,” Campbell said of US sanctions on Chinese firms, an issue he said he has been raising on visits to Europe.
Campbell said that most of Washington’s European allies shared concerns on China’s ties with Moscow but were still reeling from the “huge shock” of slashing energy imports from Russia since its invasion of Ukraine.
“For many of these countries, doing business with China has been a big deal for 15 or 20 years,” he said.
Acting on China, after Russia, could feel like “kind of a one-two punch. You can understand leaders in Europe have some anxieties.”
China argues that, unlike the United States, it is not providing weapons to either Russia or Ukraine, but Washington says Beijing is providing support that has military uses.

Campbell’s tough talk comes despite easing tensions between the United States and China under Biden, with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump more frequently speaking in Cold War terms about confronting Beijing.
Biden and his political heir Kamala Harris have supported dialogue with China even as their administration presses ahead with tough measures including a sweeping ban on exports of advanced chips.
Since a summit last year between Biden and President Xi Jinping in California, China has agreed to key US requests of restoring military communications and cracking down on ingredients in fentanyl, the drug behind a US overdose epidemic.
Campbell contended that the Biden administration has strengthened the US position since taking over from Trump, in part by bolstering alliances.
“Four years ago, the general view globally was that China had eaten our lunch, that they were going to surpass us, economically and commercially, that we were in the midst of some sort of hurtling decline,” he said.
“I do not think that is what the general belief is today.”
Meeting another key ask of the Biden administration, China freed an American pastor, David Lin, who had been detained since 2006, the State Department confirmed Sunday.
The United States had raised the case of Lin and other detained Americans with China, including when Secretary of State Antony Blinken met his counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of a meeting in Laos in July.
The State Department considers two other US citizens, Kai Li and Mark Swidan, to be wrongfully detained by China, but activists say far more Americans are behind bars or prohibited from exiting.
The mother of Swidan, detained over drug trafficking charges he denies, told a separate congressional hearing that Biden needs to engage with China on its proposals to free him.
“His case is a clear injustice, yet it continues to be ignored by those with the power to act,” she said in a statement to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
Peter Humphrey, who was detained with his wife in China from 2013 to 2015 and has since become a specialist on such cases, said a “massive number” of Americans cannot publicly raise their cases for fear of retribution by Beijing.
He said he was held with 11 other men in a packed cell with no privacy or furniture, sleeping on the floor and eating from dog bowls pushed under the bars.
He said he lost 22 pounds (10 kilos) while in detention, which he described as “torture designed to crush the human spirit and force out a confession.”