United Nations (United States) (AFP) – US President Donald Trump on Tuesday firmly rejected calls for international supervision of artificial intelligence, calling them a “globalist scheme” to control the new technology. Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly, Trump also announced that the US government would henceforth use the term “super intelligence” rather than “artificial intelligence” in its communications, hoping that the world would follow suit. “It sounds much better” and “it’s much more accurate,” he added, musing on whether the rest of the world would adopt the term.
Trump also dismissed warnings from AI safety advocates, comparing them to warnings about climate change, whose human causes are affirmed by the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community. “Every major new technology brings challenges, and super intelligence is no exception,” he said. “The very same people who said we’ll all be dead in 12 years because of global warming…are now saying that AI is going to kill us all, that robots are going to attack us, and that everything is going to be a total disaster.”
Ahead of the week of meetings and speeches in New York, leaders of more than 20 countries urged binding safety measures for advanced artificial intelligence, warning that the technology’s development could outpace the ability to control it. AI superpowers China and the United States are not signatories. Trump told the UN that the “United States totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control…artificial intelligence.”
UN chief Antonio Guterres, meanwhile, called for the US and China to start a dialogue on the technology’s future akin to US-Soviet engagement at the height of the Cold War. “Governments with the greatest AI capabilities have the greatest responsibilities to humanity, to establish channels for dialogue, transparency, trust and cooperation,” Guterres said in his address to the assembly. “At a pivotal moment during the Cold War, strategic rivals came to recognize the need to manage shared existential risks.”
China and the US are currently discussing creating a communication channel for AI concerns in anticipation of a Washington summit meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday. Both powers confront rising fears that increasingly capable artificial intelligence systems could eventually escape human control, even as they race for technological supremacy. Trump has come out strongly against AI safety measures, vowing on Saturday not to allow the “destruction” of the AI industry, a major driver of the US economy, over what he calls unjustified fears.
China’s President Xi Jinping in July said artificial intelligence should not be dominated by a single country and urged international cooperation on its development.
© 2024 AFP
