WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Fresh scientific evidence and options for harnessing artificial intelligence were unveiled Wednesday following the launch of the first global, independent scientific assessment of opportunities, risks and impacts by a pioneering UN expert panel.
'The science is here,' UN Secretary-General António Guterres said while launching the report. 'We can no longer say we did not know. What we do with it is now up to all of us.'
The more AI advances without shared rules, the less say governments and people will have in the outcome, the UN chief said, adding, 'my message to governments is simple: do not wait.'
Composed of 40 leading scientists and experts from every region, the panel outlines AI trends and warns that current safeguards cannot keep pace.
'AI capabilities are outpacing both scientific understanding and governments' ability to adapt,' said the panel's co-chair Yoshua Bengio.
'With growing evidence of deceptive AI behaviour, science currently cannot guarantee that as capabilities continue to increase, AI will not cause catastrophic harm, either on its own or due to malicious users,' he warned.
Detecting breast cancer earlier, accelerating vaccine development and improving healthcare services are just a few ground-breaking AI accomplishments, but limitations and challenges remain, the report says.
Moreover, AI development is highly concentrated, according to the experts. Recent estimates found that the United States accounts for 75 per cent of the computing power among the world's top 500 AI supercomputers, with China accounting for 15 per cent, and that both countries' companies develop almost all leading general-purpose models.
Here are some of the panel's warnings.
There are no scientific guarantees that AI agent systems will not violate instructions, and evidence is accumulating of cases where they already are.
AI agent systems will soon complete tasks that currently take human programmers days or weeks, but their deployment raises urgent questions for labour markets, cybersecurity, and the controllability of future AI systems.
Sycophantic AI behaviour, where responses reinforce users' existing beliefs regardless of accuracy, has been linked to several severe mental health incidents, including documented deaths.
Criminals and bad actors have been documented using AI systems to assist in cyberattacks.
Advanced technical abilities may allow novice private actors to use AI in malicious ways across a range of applications such as fraud and disinformation.
Reliable methods for retaining control over highly autonomous AI systems are lacking.
Aiming to build a shared understanding and evidence at this critical juncture, the 'Preliminary Report of the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI: Evidence-based assessment of opportunities, risks and impacts of AI,' was prepared by the first global, fully independent scientific body dedicated to assessing its real impacts across economies and societies.
Globally, more than one billion people now use conversational AI weekly, while governments are making consequential decisions in the face of great uncertainty with rapidly changing, often conflicting sources of evidence and perspectives that do not necessarily reflect local realities.
'Used well, AI could be the most powerful engine for development, speeding the world's progress on everything from health and hunger to learning and climate,' the UN chief said, 'but the panel is just as clear-eyed about the harm artificial intelligence can cause.'
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