Trump admin to host UN event on AI next week
The Trump administration will convene a high-level event on artificial intelligence on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly Wednesday, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell CNN, as the issue is expected to loom large over the global gathering.
The US event, to which multiple countries have been invited, comes as questions of AI and security have taken on new urgency amid dire warningsabout the potential existential threat posed by artificial intelligence.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has raged against the idea of government regulations, alleging concerns about the technology are a “hoax.”
The US event is slated to take place the same day as a UN Security Council meeting on AI and security, to discuss the risks being seen by AI companies and executives. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is expected to brief that meeting, an OpenAI spokesperson told CNN.
US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz, Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Jacob Helberg, and Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers will host the US event.
The US is billing it as chance to talk about partnering with the US on AI, according to a source familiar with the event, and there is expected to be a discussion about the “policy, legal, and regulatory conditions that enable adoption at scale, including free expression considerations.”
CNN has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Claire Melamed, the Vice President for AI and Digital Cooperation at the United Nations Foundation said there are “many side events at the global gathering focused on AI, but it’s “less clear how much it’s going to be an agenda in the main formal business.”
The UN is “still very much sort of setting the stage, setting out positions, trying to work out, as many other organizations are too, really what the UN’s role should be,” she said.
Melamed said “there’s increasing interest in the UN having a potential role in crisis management.”
“If there’s a huge AI-generated cyberattack and you’re working in a hospital in Zambia or you know a bank in Botswana, and this cyberattack is starting to spill beyond your borders, you don’t know what to do, who you’re going to call? Well, often it’s the UN,” she explained. “There’s a lot of interest in that, and sort of the role of the UN in equalizing access to some of the AI governance instruments and safeguards.”
Melamed said she does not expect “a firm deliverable” coming out of the UN Security Council meeting on AI because of the “very different positions that there are among the permanent members of the Security Council, never mind everyone else in the UN.” The US, China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom are the permanent members of the UNSC.
She said she believes most people will be waiting to see what comes out of the meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping next Thursday, where AI is expected to be a key topic of discussion.
By CNN
