NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 17 – Today the Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations in New York hosted the round table “New Frontiers: Ethical Dimension of Artificial Intelligence”. Permanent Representative, Ambassador Maurizio Massari, opened the event, followed by the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy for Technologies, Amandeep Gill, and Paolo Benanti, Franciscan friar and Professor of moral theology and ethics, recently appointed as an expert of the new Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence. This group, launched by Secretary-General Guterres last October, has been tasked with issuing recommendations ahead of the Summit of the Future that will be held in September 2024and expected to adopt the Global Digital Compact.
The discussion, including also many UN Representatives of the countries most active in the global technological innovation process, focused on the need to develop a global AI governance that also incorporates technology’s ethical dimension. As Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in her speech at the UN General Assembly in September, the topic will also be at the heart of the upcoming Italian G7 Presidency. “We must develop an algorithm, a new universal language that is capable of translating ethical directives into instructions that can be executed by machines,” Father Benanti explained.
Ambassador Massari added that “Technological developments and AI can allow us to address the most urgent global challenges, accelerating the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda. However, we cannot ignore the risks: an unregulated use of AI can cause misinformation, discrimination, violations of privacy and even threaten our democracies”.
Ambassador Massari then confirmed “Italy will continue to contribute to the reflection started at the United Nations to ensure that the topic of AI is addressed in an inclusive way and in such a way as to reduce the gap in technological development”.
The UN Secretary General’s Envoy for Technologies, Amandeep Gill, underlined the important role that Italy has had in this sector at UN level. He remarked: “The Italian G7 Presidency offers an important opportunity to strengthen international cooperation on the governance of Artificial Intelligence, by shedding light on the impact that this can have on society, also ahead of the expected Global Digital Compact. (@OnuItalia)
