UN Secretary-General Urges Stronger Global AI Governance at Inaugural Dialogue

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres appealed for far-reaching worldwide controls on artificial intelligence at the inaugural UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance in Geneva on 6 July 2026, warning that the technology is developing faster than safeguards can keep pace (UN News).

Addressing delegates, Guterres stressed that any future agreement must put safety first—especially for children—and be worthy of global trust. He noted that increasingly powerful AI chips designed for civilian use are shifting to the battlefield and that AI has reached children in their learning, friendships, and private questions without adequate prior assessment of impacts. “No child should be a guinea pig for unregulated AI,” he said, calling on nations to adopt an AI Child Safety Pledge. Under the pledge, developers would need to prove systems are safe for children through specific testing and independent oversight, maintain zero tolerance for generating sexual images of children, and ensure systems stop and connect distressed children to human support (UN News; Reuters).

The dialogue, established by UN General Assembly resolution following the 2024 Global Digital Compact, convened governments, tech companies, researchers, civil society, and other stakeholders for discussions on AI opportunities, bridging divides, safety, security, interoperability, human rights, transparency, accountability, and human oversight. A second session is planned for May 2027 in New York (UN Global Dialogue site; press release).

Guterres highlighted AI’s potential as a “great equalizer” that could compress decades of development into years if shared widely, while warning against a deepening digital and AI divide. Private funding for AI infrastructure vastly outstrips public support for capacity-building in developing countries, which he described as a “rounding error.” He announced support from more than 20 countries for a UN-supported Global Network for Exchange and Cooperation on AI Capacity Building and called for every major AI company to publicly disclose the full carbon, water, and land footprint of its systems, with data centres powered by renewable energy by 2030 (UN News).

Human rights must remain non-negotiable, he said: “AI must never strip away dignity or entrench discrimination. And in every high-stakes decision – in justice, in healthcare, in policing – machines can inform, but humans must decide – and answer.” UN General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock echoed concerns about AI’s “sinister” side, noting that a reported 99 per cent of deepfakes are sexual in nature and 96 per cent target women and girls (UN News).

Delegates considered a preliminary report from the UN Independent International Scientific Panel on AI, composed of 40 independent experts co-chaired by Yoshua Bengio and Maria Ressa. Released shortly before the dialogue, the report provides the first global independent scientific assessment of AI. It states that AI capabilities are outpacing scientific understanding and governments’ ability to adapt, with few methods available for controlling highly autonomous systems. Panel co-chair Bengio noted growing evidence of deceptive behaviour in frontier models and that science cannot guarantee AI will not cause catastrophic harm “either on its own or due to malicious users.” The report identifies enormous potential benefits alongside risks including harms to mental health, use as a destructive tool, impacts on social, economic and environmental systems, bias and discrimination, erosion of information integrity, and challenges in control. AI development is highly concentrated, with the United States accounting for about 75 per cent of computing power among the world’s top 500 AI supercomputers and China 15 per cent. Adoption exceeds one billion weekly users of conversational AI globally but lags in developing countries (Reuters; The Guardian; UN News).

UN Special Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technologies Amandeep Singh Gill stated that AI is too consequential to be shaped by a few and requires a global, inclusive, evidence-based conversation. The dialogue is not intended to forge a treaty but to facilitate cooperation, share best practices, and build common approaches (press release; Reuters).