By Doyinsola Oladipo
UNITED NATIONS, Sept 29 (Reuters) – Developing nations are demanding a greater role in shaping the rules governing artificial intelligence, warning that a technology poised to transform economies could instead deepen global inequalities if its development and regulation remain concentrated in wealthy countries.
The debate at last week’s UN festival of diplomacy in New York highlighted mounting concern among leaders from Africa, Asia and Latin America around the increasingly powerful technology after several safety breaches, and as top researchers have warned it could destroy humanity.
“Developing countries cannot be reduced to the role of mere users of technologies designed elsewhere, nor should be the mere recipients of standards and norms that they did not adequately participate in shaping,” said Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“We must ensure that technological transformations of the 21st century do not reproduce the economic imbalances of previous decades,” Wagner said.
She made the remarks at a Security Council session dedicated to AI that featured top executives of leading labs, including Sam Altman from OpenAI and Dario Amodei from Anthropic, who urged governments to work together to manage the technology.
Underscoring the surge in interest in the subject, Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman of Bangladesh, who chaired the UN debate this year, said that, “four years ago, AI was raised in this hall by only five delegations – this year, 128 delegations addressed it.”
‘A QUESTION OF GOVERNANCE’
“Many framed AI as a question of governance: Who designs it, who benefits? Who bears the risks, and who is accountable when harm occurs,” added the Bangladeshi foreign minister as he concluded the marathon of speeches at the UN.
AI could enable developing countries to gain a century’s worth of development in a decade if they act quickly on power, connectivity and skills gaps, the World Bank said in a report last month.
The International Monetary Fund said in July that AI could boost Sub-Saharan Africa’s economy by about 4% over the next decade under the right circumstances.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres compared debates around AI risks and climate change and said that developing nations should have an equal voice in both.
“The climate crisis went from distant warning to daily reality and artificial intelligence moved at a speed that has blindsided even those who created it,” he said.
“These are not separate crises. They are chapters of the same story, the story of power: Who has it. Who is denied it. How it is used. And how it is changing,” Guterres told the UN.
As with climate change, Guterres and Global South leaders urged a coordinated global action rather than isolated national responses to AI threats.
Their focus on regulation stood in sharp contrast with remarks by US President Donald Trump, who has dismissed AI risks as a “hoax” and “sick conspiracy” and told the UN that – like climate change – they were vastly overblown.
“The very same people who said we’ll all be dead in 12 years because of global warming – a name since reborn to climate change because the planet was cooling, not warming, and nobody was dead – these are the same people that are now saying that AI is going to kill us all,” Trump said.
Belize Prime Minister John Briceño said AI, if well governed, could widen access to knowledge and improve public services. But he also warned: “Poorly governed, it can deepen inequality, expose critical systems, displace workers and leave developing countries dependent on technologies and rules designed elsewhere.”
(Reporting by Doyinsola Oladipo in New York; Editing by Antoni Slodkowski and Howard Goller)
