Page 12 - AI Governance Day - From Principles to Implementation

AI Governance Day - From Principles to Implementation

• Theme 3: How do we ensure inclusion and trust?
Inclusion starts with connecting the unconnected. In 2023, according to ITU statistics, a
third of the world's population is still not connected to the Internet. Furthermore, many
people and many countries that are being impacted by AI are not integrated in ongoing
discussions to set AI policies. The report also provides details on the discussion of open
vs. closed sourcing of AI models.

The second half of AI Governance Day, the public afternoon sessions, built on the morning
discussions and featured panel discussions.

• ITU's Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin recalled that the conundrum of how to
govern a technology if we do not yet know its full potential is not new: twenty years ago,
the Internet was met with a similar mix of shock, awe, and skepticism. But what we have
learned from the WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) process was that we
can take steps toward governance even if we are building the plane as we fly. From
the discussions in the morning, Ms Bogdan-Martin's learnings, based on the fundamental
premise of including every nation and every stakeholder group in governance efforts,
included three key pieces which must be part of any AI governance effort: (1) development
of technical standards; (2) putting core UN values at the heart of AI governance; and (3)
development through capacity building.
• In the session "Leaders speak: Insights and key findings on AI governance implementation",
three Ministers, from Namibia, Colombia and Bangladesh, underscored the importance
of a coordinated, inclusive, and human-centric approach to AI governance.
• "State of play of major global AI governance processes" featured the Council of Europe,
the European Commission, USA, China, Japan (G7 Hiroshima process), and Republic of
Korea (follow-up host of the UK AI Safety Summit in November 2023).
• "Leveraging the UN system to advance global AI governance efforts" spotlighted the
Executive Heads of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the United
Nations University (UNU), and the ITU.
• In "The government's AI dilemma: How to maximize rewards while minimizing risks?",
government leaders from Namibia, Uruguay and India stressed the benefits of AI such
as in healthcare, education, digital literacy training, the need for ethical implementation
and data privacy via a national AI strategy, but also the downsides such as the increase in
cybercrime.
• "The critical conversation on AI safety and risk" saw researchers and company executives
underscore the complexity and urgency of AI safety and risk management.
• The discussion in the session "To share or not to share: the dilemma of open-source
vs proprietary large language models", hosting the Executive Director of the Linux
Foundation and executives of Google, Meta, the Wikimedia Foundation and a policy
researcher of the Future of Life Institute, emphasized that open source plays a critical role
in fostering innovation, ensuring transparency and preventing market consolidation, while
also recognizing the need for responsible governance to address risks.
• "Harmonizing high-tech: The role of AI standards as an implementation tool" welcomed
the Executive Heads of the world's leading international standards organizations – ITU, the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the International Electrotechnical
Commission (IEC). The three organizations have been coordinating and collaborating on
standards development for decades. (They announced new initiatives on AI at the AI for
Good Global Summit, following AI Governance Day.)
• In the closing session "From principles to implementation – pathways forward", the two
co-chairs (from ITU and UNESCO) of the United Nations Interagency Working Group
on AI, highlighted ongoing UN System-wide coordination efforts on AI, and the United
Nation Systems White Paper on AI governance (May 2024).

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