What’s on the agenda at the 'world’s most important meeting'?

Pompously billed as “the world’s most important meeting,” the United Nations General Assembly, also known as UNGA, is undoubtedly a big deal. UNGA is to global leaders and policymakers as the Rio Carnival is to revellers and partygoers (a must-attend). The assembly and the hundreds of side events it spawns (close to 600 at my last count) occur yearly in New York City during September. Among other things, these gatherings aim to discuss humanity’s most pressing issues.

This year, and for many years to come, I suspect some of the loudest and most animated conversations will focus on digital technology, especially artificial intelligence (AI). In 2020, during his first term as Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres called for multi-stakeholder international efforts to “pursue the benefits of digital technologies while mitigating their risks”. At this year’s gathering (UNGA79), the official guide lists 580 events across 17 categories, with 249 focusing on AI and technology. “Climate and environment” is the only topic with a larger slice of the attention pie.

Stay up to date with the latest news. Follow KT on WhatsApp Channels.

One of this year’s key UNGA events was The Summit of the Future: Multilateral Solutions for a Better Tomorrow. The Summit critically examined technology, and here, a Global Digital Compact was discussed and finally agreed upon by the UN’s 193 member states. This landmark framework, the Global Digital Compact, articulates principles and sets actionable objectives to help humanity attain an “open, sustainable, fair, safe and secure digital future for all.”

Objective number one of the Global Digital Compact is to close all digital divides, in other words, to connect the unconnected by reducing global inequalities in access to life-enhancing technologies and the online world. According to the UN, 2.6 billion people— a third of the global population — still lack meaningful and reliable access to the online world, with women faring worse.

Another key goal of the compact is to reign in AI. The current draft calls for enhanced governance and regulation of AI for the benefit of humanity. The general sentiment is that AI has been allowed to become a runaway technology, advancing faster than desirable with limited checks and balances, transparency and accountability.

Only a few countries currently have the requisite computing power to develop and deploy advanced AI, so the compact also focuses on how AI’s benefits can be more equitably distributed. For instance, a global study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) estimates that AI will add close to 16 trillion dollars to the global economy by 2030. China and North America are projected to take 70 per cent of this gain. The compact calls for a more equitable distribution of the economic benefits of AI, especially for the least developed countries.

This topic of digital technology and AI can be particularly polarising. For example, the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report for 2024 asked 1500 global experts to rate the impact (severity) of 10 threats in the coming two years. Two of the top five threats were related to technology, with online disinformation and misinformation taking the number one spot and cyber insecurity ranked fourth. When asked to expand their predictions to cover the coming ten years, then the threat of “adverse outcomes of AI technologies” was also added to the top-ten risk list.

Researchers from Berkley, Bonn, and Oxford universities offered a similarly pessimistic prognosis. In their 2023 survey of 2,778 AI researchers—the largest of its kind—just over a third of respondents gave at least a 10 per cent chance of advanced AI leading to outcomes as bad as human extinction.

On the other side of this equation, though, there is optimism that digital technologies, especially AI, can help fast-track progress and turbocharge development. For the UN, AI is also viewed as a technology that can help humanity make sustainable progress towards important development goals such as eliminating poverty and hunger and improving access to education and healthcare for all.