This week, on 26 June, leaders from the United Nations, industry, and academia gathered online to answer journalists’ burning questions about the rise of generative artificial intelligence and what it means for global governance ahead of the AI for Good Global Summit to be convened by ITU from 6 to 7 July.
The goal of the Summit, said ITU Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin, who opened the media roundtable, is to advance AI dialogue as a global community: with civil society, academia, the private sector, governments, and the UN.
“We are at a critical moment in history where we can get this right and build the global governance we need,” said AI expert Gary Marcus, professor emeritus at NYU who recently testified before the US Senate Judiciary Committee. Marcus looks forward to the Summit as an ideal place to “plan and think what the right next move is.”
Juan Lavista Ferres, Chief Scientist at Microsoft, pointed out that for certain problems, AI offers “the only solution we have” – emphasizing that we need “all the help we can get.”
While the revolutionary potential of the technology was not up for debate – it was “the way forward” in terms of global guardrails and governance that generated lively discussion.
