{"id":80169,"date":"2026-04-30T00:26:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T04:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=80169"},"modified":"2026-04-30T00:26:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T04:26:18","slug":"why-the-world-needs-the-un-to-keep-an-eye-on-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/why-the-world-needs-the-un-to-keep-an-eye-on-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the world needs the UN to keep an eye on AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

AI doesn\u2019t have a boss. It doesn\u2019t really care about rules. And most of us don\u2019t have any say over what it will do next.<\/p>\n

Yet\u00a0the technology<\/a>\u00a0is all around us, firmly established in workplaces, financial systems, healthcare and defence. So maybe it needs someone to keep an eye on its progress and set some boundaries.<\/p>\n

The UN certainly thinks so, and recently decided to set up an\u00a0independent panel<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0monitor<\/a>\u00a0AI\u2019s future development. It seems like a sensible move, but this attempt to create a successful forum for\u00a0\u201crigorous, independent scientific insight\u201d<\/a>\u00a0also highlights the inherent difficulties of governing technology on a global scale.<\/p>\n

For a start, the US, which dominates AI development, doesn\u2019t want anything to do with the panel. It\u00a0voted against<\/a>\u00a0the UN\u2019s idea (so did Paraguay), calling it \u201csignificant overreach\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the UN argues that AI affects everyone, and requires some global coordination. UN secretary-general Ant\u00f3nio Guterres has\u00a0described<\/a>\u00a0the new panel as the first \u201cfully independent scientific body dedicated to helping close the AI knowledge gap and assess the real impacts of AI\u201d.<\/p>\n

As with some of the UN\u2019s other forums, like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or the International Atomic Energy Agency, the AI panel would not write the laws, but would help establish common ground rules and standards that everyone can agree on.<\/p>\n

AI is a different beast though. Unlike climate policy or nuclear materials, which are the responsibility of national governments, AI\u2019s progress is largely driven by private \u2013 and very wealthy \u2013 firms.<\/p>\n

International coordination is much more difficult, and already the US, the EU and China are taking different approaches to governance.<\/p>\n

The EU takes a\u00a0fairly cautious line<\/a>, with strict rules on high-risk applications in areas like recruitment or law enforcement. The US favours\u00a0voluntary standards<\/a>\u00a0within the industry. Meanwhile, China treats AI development and control as a matter of state.<\/p>\n

When different parts of the world approach things so differently, there is a risk that any attempt at global cooperation will simply not work. Big firms could simply move their headquarters to whichever part of the world they consider to be the least restrictive. Technical rules can then become geopolitical tools rather than shared protections.<\/p>\n

But the biggest challenge goes beyond technical coordination, because AI is fundamentally a technology of power which involves control over information, opportunity and surveillance.<\/p>\n

There have already been cases of AI being used in\u00a0predictive policing models<\/a>\u00a0that disproportionately target communities. It has been part of automated welfare systems that\u00a0exclude the vulnerable<\/a>\u00a0and decide on access to credit or housing.<\/p>\n

Digital accountability<\/strong><\/h4>\n

This is not the first time that a powerful digital force has surged ahead while oversight lags behind.<\/p>\n

I witnessed this firsthand with\u00a0research<\/a>\u00a0I carried out with colleagues about Bitcoin.<\/p>\n

When we published our findings about Bitcoin\u2019s massive energy footprint in 2021, the reaction was\u00a0immediate<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0global<\/a>. It triggered a debate that shook the industry, and demonstrated that digital systems can cause to the world.<\/p>\n

AI is now on the same path, but the stakes are exponentially higher, affecting not just energy grids, but society itself.<\/p>\n

AI-generated political statements,\u00a0religious sermons<\/a>\u00a0and news footage circulate on screens everywhere. And when people cannot reliably distinguish authentic authority from artificial output, social trust is\u00a0eroded<\/a>.<\/p>\n

AI could make\u00a0online incitement<\/a>\u00a0easier, cheaper, more personalised and more widespread. Some civil leaders have claimed that\u00a0digital radicalisation<\/a>, the process by which people adopt extremist views through online content, could be intensified by these tools.<\/p>\n

Societies everywhere are already grappling with AI\u2019s wider social consequences.<\/p>\n

The head of the Muslim World League, an international non-governmental Islamic organisation, Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa,\u00a0has warned<\/a>\u00a0that AI may \u201cmanipulate the ideologies and beliefs that connect and influence billions\u201d with extremist messaging.<\/p>\n

Having seen how groups like Islamic State exploited social platforms for recruitment and division, he also argues that the danger lies not only in what is said, but in the loss of identifiable authority behind it. Elsewhere, the Pope has\u00a0warned<\/a>\u00a0that AI must never diminish human dignity or reduce people to data points.<\/p>\n

These kinds of worry reflect legitimate concerns about how technological platforms can fracture societies when ethical guardrails fall behind. And this is precisely where the UN may have an important role to play.<\/p>\n

\n

Historically, its strength has never depended on enforcement power so much as on symbolic authority and its ability to articulate widely shared goals designed to improve people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

The UN\u2019s 1948\u00a0Universal Declaration of Human Rights<\/a>\u00a0became the foundation of modern human rights law, by reshaping what governments could plausibly justify. Likewise, the\u00a0global eradication of smallpox<\/a>\u00a0showed how a shared UN-backed objective could enable cooperation even across geopolitical divides.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the real question, then, is not whether the UN should try to regulate AI directly. It is whether the world can afford a fragmented AI order defined solely by markets, geopolitics and billionaires, with no common ground.<\/p>\n

Because while the promise of AI is staggering, serious and dangerous failings could yet emerge from the unfilled gaps in governance. The UN could help to avoid them.<\/p>\n

Author Bio:<\/strong> Yu Xiong is Chair Professor of Business Analytics at University of Surrey; Northumbria University, Newcastle<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AI doesn\u2019t have a boss. It doesn\u2019t really care about rules. And most of us don\u2019t have any say over what it will do next. Yet\u00a0the technology\u00a0is all around us, firmly established in workplaces, financial systems, healthcare and defence. So maybe it needs someone to keep an eye on its progress and set some boundaries. […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[434804],"tags":[435688],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-80169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-digital-accountability"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy the world needs the UN to keep an eye on AI - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/why-the-world-needs-the-un-to-keep-an-eye-on-ai\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why the world needs the UN to keep an eye on AI - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"AI doesn\u2019t have a boss. 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