A hold on AI: on the Preliminary Report of the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI

The UN’s Preliminary Report of the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI drives at a few fault lines in the rapid investment into and proliferation of AI technologies: the Global South-Global North divide, with the latter poised to take the lion’s share of the benefits of the diffusion of advanced AI models in different industries; and the challenge poorer countries face in regulating models far more advanced than what their own AI ecosystems can develop. These divides force emerging countries to choose between capital-intensive undertakings to get a seat at the table, or to accept the hand dealt to them by the half-dozen companies whose decisions shape AI access and use. These divisions are all the more urgent when seen in the light of what makes a country a voice that matters in AI: abundant electricity, highly capitalised firms that employ scarce talent with high salaries, and a drive to plow through policy resistance with a competitive zeal to outdo last month’s capabilities. While the report highlights AI technologies’ transformative potential in scientific research, its development is far more rapid than that of social media — an industry that had time to act responsibly yet deformed public discourse and affected democracies, even as people were more or less able to tell what was going on in real time. It is unclear whether individual countries, even China or the U.S., have enough power to meaningfully arrest how AI develops.