Biden Presses World Leaders to Counter AI’s Most Extreme Risks

President Joe Biden Tuesday called on world leaders to protect their citizens from the most extreme risks posed by artificial intelligence, predicting that the technology will change how nations wage war.

Biden, in what is scheduled to be his final address to the United Nations General Assembly as president, detailed his fears that bad actors will use AI to spread disinformation and engineer novel diseases that could harm humans. He also urged world leaders gathered in New York to write standards for the technology that promote equality in poorer countries and enhance human life.

“We must make certain that the awesome capabilities of AI are used to uplift and empower everyday people, not to give dictators more powerful shackles on the human spirit,” Biden said in his address.

Biden’s remarks reflect his administration’s ambition to shape how allies and adversaries govern AI as he enters the final months of his presidency.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has said if elected he would repeal Biden’s sweeping executive order on AI, which includes directives to collaborate with allies on the technology. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, has championed the order and traveled to the UK last year to promote it.

Developing Countries

Separate from Biden’s speech, administration officials showcased at the UN efforts to enable AI innovation in developing countries.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that American technology companies including Alphabet Inc.‘s Google, International Business Machines Corp., and Meta Platforms Inc. will donate funding, computational power, workforce training, and hardware to the effort.

Blinken also called on the private sector more broadly to make computing resources and data storage, inputs needed to develop AI systems, more affordable for developers outside wealthy countries.

“This AI revolution is leaving people behind, simply due to a lack of access or a lack of capacity,” Blinken said at an event that featured top executives from OpenAI, Microsoft Corp, and Nvidia Corp. “And those are really the challenges before us and the challenges that we’re focused on today.”

Blinken made the announcements after the UN’s AI advisory group called on the US and other wealthy nations last week to include developing countries in global discussions about AI regulation and development.

The group called on the UN to oversee a global scientific panel to monitor and study AI. The panel would mimic the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and publish annual reports on the technology’s capabilities and risks.