Powerful tech companies are alreadypursuing profits from artificial intelligence (AI) with areckless disregard for human rights, personal privacy, andsocial impact, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres hassaid.
In his speech to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forumin Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, Guterres drew a parallelbetween the "existential threats" posed by climate change and AIdevelopment "without guardrails", highlighting the lack of "aneffective global strategy to address both".
AI has "enormous potential for sustainable development, but theInternational Monetary Fund has just warned that it is verylikely to worsen inequality", explained Guterres, referring tothe report published by the international financialorganization ahead of the Davos meeting.
According to the IMF, AI will impact 60% of jobs in advancedeconomies, compared to 40% in emerging markets and 26% inlow-income countries.
The risk, the report points out, is that the development of thenew technology will increase the gap between rich and poorcountries and amplify wage inequalities, with large increases inincome for only some categories of workers who already earn highwages.
Consequently, Guterres' appealed to governments to work"urgently" with tech companies on "risk management frameworksfor current AI development; and on monitoring and mitigatingfuture harms".
The UN Secretary General also stressed the need for "asystematic effort to increase access to AI so that developingeconomies can benefit from its enormous potential".
"We need to bridge the digital divide instead of deepening it,"said Guterres.
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