Secretary-General, at First Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence, Stresses Safety, Human Rights, Transparency Must Govern Its Development

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres' remarks to the opening of the First Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance, in Geneva today:

Artificial intelligence is advancing at runaway speed. A technology that can reshape economies, transform the world of work, sway elections and tilt the balance of security is being deployed faster than anyone - including the people building it - can keep up.

An experiment is being run on our own societies - without a plan and without consent. That is not sustainable. And it is not acceptable.

AI is already transforming our world. The question is whether we will shape this transformation together - or let it shape us.

And today, that question has an answer - right here, at this Global Dialogue on AI Governance. For the first time, every country has a seat at the table. And we have a shared base of evidence.

This morning, the Co-Chairs of the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence will present their first report. Forty leading experts, from every region and across disciplines, serving in their personal capacity - independent of any Government, any company, any institution.

The science carries three warnings. The first is about speed. The internet took 15 years to reach a billion people. AI got there in two. And these systems are no longer tools awaiting instruction - they are writing code, acting online and making choices with less and less human oversight.

Our institutions were built to govern machines that follow commands. They are not ready for machines that decide. And some lines, once crossed, cannot be uncrossed.

The second warning is about power. The computing power, the data and the talent behind the most advanced systems are concentrated in a handful of companies and in a handful of countries. Most nations - including many developing countries - have had no say in decisions that will shape their futures. The longer we wait, the harder that concentration sets. When power imbalances are hard-wired into technology, inequality becomes part of the code.

The third warning is about truth. A machine-enabled lie can now persuade as effectively as the truth - and authentic evidence can be dismissed as fake. Further eroding the integrity of our information ecosystem and undermining trust. A society that cannot agree on what is real cannot defend itself.

In other ways, more and more people are tempted to trust the machine - and hope for the best. There's a name for that: vibe-coding. Let the AI do it. Don't look too closely. Seems to work? Good enough. And vibe-coding can do wonders - but we cannot vibe-code the truth. We cannot vibe-code the future of humanity.

The warnings are real. But so is the potential. Because the same technology, built with purpose, is already changing lives for good. A mother in a rural clinic has her scan read in minutes - and her cancer caught in time. A child keeps learning beyond the classroom - with a tutor that never tires. A smallholder farmer plants with the same forecasts as the biggest agribusiness - and brings the harvest home.

All of this is happening today - often in places the headlines rarely reach. And it points to something profound. For all of human history, expertise has been held by too few people, in too few places, at too high a price.

Penicillin took decades to reach the villages that needed it most. Electricity took a century - and is still arriving. Artificial intelligence does not have to wait. Used well, and shared widely, AI could compress decades of development into years. It could become the great equalizer of the twenty-first century.

But no future builds itself. And so, the choice before us is not between faith in AI or fear of it. It is between governing by design - and drifting by default.

In my first address to the opening of the General Assembly in 2017, I said the following, and I quote: "Artificial intelligence is a game changer that can boost development and transform lives in spectacular fashion. But it may also have a dramatic impact on labour markets and, indeed, on global security and the very fabric of societies." Back then, only two other leaders even uttered the words "artificial intelligence".

But today, it sits at the heart of our common future. That did not happen by accident. For years, the UN system - from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and beyond - has been hard at work.

In 2023, my High-Level Advisory Body on AI called for the world to govern it - together. In 2024, the Pact for the Future and the Global Digital Compact gave us the mandate.

This morning, the Scientific Panel will give us the evidence. The Dialogue must now give the world direction. And it will be complemented later this week here in Geneva by the AI for Good Summit and its initiatives. This is all part of an integrated UN effort to ensure AI serves people everywhere. So let me name four priorities for the road ahead.

First, safety. When countries align on how to test systems, measure risk and assign responsibility, safety travels with the technology. When they do not, a patchwork of incompatible rules raises costs, divides the world - and protects no one.

We need common baselines for frontier systems, common methods to evaluate and verify risks and common resolve that systems with global reach must meet standards worthy of global trust.

Nowhere does safety matter more than for those least able to protect themselves - our children. We do not let medicine reach a child until it is proven safe. We test every toy. Yet AI has reached our children - their learning, their friendships, their most private questions - before anyone asked what it would do to them.

And we are already seeing the cost: children deceived by machines posing as friends; children steered toward self-harm; children violated by abuse images made at the touch of a button. No child should be a guinea pig for unregulated AI.

Building on the work of the United Nations, Member States and others, I am today calling for an AI Child Safety Pledge - with three simple rules for any system a child can reach. Prove it is safe - no company should deploy an AI system accessible to children without child-specific safety testing and independent oversight. Zero tolerance for sexual abuse - no company should allow its AI to generate sexual images of children - and every company must detect, report and remove them. And never leave a child in crisis alone - when a child shows signs of distress, the system must stop and connect them to real human support. When a child is harmed, the answer must never be "the algorithm did it".

Second, red lines. Human rights are not negotiable. 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.

Third, capacity. Last year, private investment in AI infrastructure approached half a trillion dollars. Public investment in AI capacity for developing countries is, by comparison, a rounding error. We cannot allow the digital divide to harden into an AI divide; and the AI divide to become a development gap, a security gap and a sovereignty gap.

More than 20 Member States have already responded to my invitation and nominated centres to a UN-supported Global Network for Exchange and Cooperation on AI Capacity-Building. The Network will build on existing initiatives, sharing knowledge, promoting cooperation and expanding access to capacity-building - particularly for developing countries.

And I will shortly submit to the General Assembly my recommendations for a Global Fund for AI - to build skills, data and affordable computing power everywhere. My message to all Member States is clear: support the Network; back the Fund; leverage the capacities of the UN system - with resources, partnerships and expertise.

And fourth, transparency. AI may feel intangible - but its footprint is not. Data centres already consume more electricity than most countries. By 2030, they could use more electricity than all but five nations - and enough water to meet the needs of all 1.3 billion people in sub-Saharan Africa for an entire year. And too often, the communities hosting this infrastructure are asked to carry the burden - without the information they need or the benefits they deserve.

That is why I have, two weeks ago, put forward the AI Environmental Transparency Initiative - calling on every major AI company to measure and publicly disclose the full footprint of its systems: carbon, water and land - and to commit to power every data centre with renewable energy by 2030. A few companies have taken first steps. I invite all to go much further.

The Global Dialogue is about civilian AI. But AI does not respect that line. The same models and chips have moved onto the battlefield. My main concern is with "lethal autonomous weapon systems". Let us call them what they are: killer robots. Machines selecting and engaging their target and taking a life - without human control and judgment.

That is morally repugnant. It is politically unacceptable. And it must be banned by international law. States are already at the discussion table. But let us not wait for atrocity to act. Some decisions must remain forever human - none more than taking a human life.

Some might claim that governance is the enemy of innovation. But innovation needs guardrails. The technologies we trust most - in aviation, in medicine, in nuclear energy and beyond - earned that trust because we acted to hold their makers to account.

If AI is to be powerful, it must be governed. If AI is to be trusted, those who build it must be accountable. If AI is to be global, it must be fair. And if AI is to serve the future, it must not consume the future.

That will require Governments to act with urgency, companies to accept responsibility equal to their power, scientists to keep bringing evidence into the light and this Dialogue to become the place where global participation leads to global action.

We may be the last generation able to set the terms on which humanity and machines coexist. The door is still open. But it will not stay open long.

But today, in Geneva, 193 nations are stepping through it - together. I thank the Dialogue Co-Chairs for their commitment, leadership and tireless efforts over the past year. I also thank ITU and UNESCO for co-coordinating the joint secretariat supporting this Dialogue - working closely with the UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies and partners across the United Nations system.

Let this meeting be remembered as the moment governance began to catch up with the technology. And when this Dialogue reconvenes in New York next year, let us be able to say that the work begun here is making AI safer, fairer, more accessible and more ethical.

This is the measure of our task: to help build a future of AI by humanity, with humanity and for all humanity.