UN scientific panel warns of AI risks in first global report

Investing.com -- A United Nations scientific panel released its first report on artificial intelligence, highlighting both significant benefits and substantial risks associated with the technology's rapid development. The preliminary findings will be presented to governments at the UN Global Dialogue on AI governance in Geneva on July 6 to 7.

The report, compiled by 40 scientists and experts from around the world, represents the first global independent scientific assessment of AI. A more comprehensive report is scheduled for next year. Panel members serve three-year terms independent of any government, institution or company.

The panel found that AI capabilities are advancing faster than scientific understanding and government regulatory capacity. Panel co-chair Yoshua Bengio pointed to growing evidence of deceptive AI behavior and stated that science cannot guarantee AI will not cause catastrophic harm through autonomous actions or malicious use as capabilities expand.

AI adoption has spread unevenly across countries and sectors. More than one billion people now use conversational AI weekly, but adoption remains limited in developing countries. The United States accounts for 75% of computing power among the world's top 500 AI supercomputers, while China represents 15%.

Current AI models support only a small fraction of the more than 7,000 languages spoken worldwide. Machine translation errors in some languages can affect health diagnoses and treatment decisions, according to the report.

The panel identified risks including AI-generated child sexual abuse material and deepfake-enabled sexual violence. AI systems also enable large-scale production of persuasive content, which the report said contributes to erosion of information integrity that can weaken public trust and democratic processes.

Most countries lack the technical expertise to assess advanced AI models or participate meaningfully in their governance, the panel found.

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