The race to develop AI is happening alongside the race to regulate it — with the latter potentially having profound impacts on the former.
Illustration by Pete Ryan
In July, the UN Security Council held its 9,381st meeting and the very first specifically focused on artificial intelligence. As Secretary-General António Guterres noted, the technology has the potential to turbocharge global development but can also “help people to harm themselves and each other, at massive scale.”
In order to avoid that fate, the Council had invited a briefing from Zeng Yi, a professor at the Institute of Automation at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the director of the International Research Center for AI Ethics and Governance in Beijing.
From a giant video monitor, Zeng told the Security Council a story about a young boy who had asked him whether AI could be used to help a nuclear bomb blow up an asteroid headed for Earth, thus saving humanity.
Zeng Yi speaking via video during the UN Security Council meeting on AI, July 18, 2023. Credit: Zeng Yi via LinkedIn
The boy’s idea, Zeng said, was “at least using AI to solve problems fo
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