‘AI cannot be a privilege of a few’: UN chief backs India’s summit

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has described India as the “right place” to host the upcoming AI Impact Summit, saying artificial intelligence must benefit all countries rather than remain limited to major powers. He praised India’s growing global influence and said the event should ensure participation from developing nations.

India is hosting the first-ever AI Impact Summit from February 16 to 20.

“I strongly congratulate India for organising this Summit. It’s absolutely essential that AI develops itself to the benefit of everybody, everywhere and that countries in the Global South are part of the benefits of AI,” he said in an interview with PTI at the UN headquarters ahead of the summit. 

The summit, the first of its kind to be held in the Global South, will follow the guiding principles of People, Planet, and Progress. Guterres, who will travel to India for the meeting, warned against artificial intelligence being dominated by a small group of nations. “It would be totally unacceptable that AI would be just a privilege of the most developed countries or a division only between two superpowers,” he said.

He added: “It is absolutely essential that AI becomes a universal instrument for the benefit of humankind.”

Describing India’s global role, he said: “The role of India, (which) is today a very successful emerging economy that is having a bigger and bigger role in not only the global economy but in its influence in global affairs, India is the right place to have this Summit and to make sure that AI (is) being discussed in depth, in all its enormous potential and also in all its risks, but that AI belongs to the whole world and not only to a few.”

World leaders and technology executives are expected to attend, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Google and Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai, Adobe chief executive Shantanu Narayen, and Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei.

Guterres said he would discuss global cooperation with Indian leaders during his visit, adding that he supports a multipolar international system. “There are two things we need to avoid in the world. We need to avoid the system in which there is total hegemony by only one power or a system in which the world is divided between two superpowers,” he said.

The UN chief described himself as a strong advocate of multipolarity and said emerging economies should have a larger role in global governance and cooperation networks. In that context, he cited the recent India-European Union trade agreement as an example.

“India is one of the most relevant emerging economies,” he said. “We are seeing across the world, more and more, the creation of a network of, I would say, all developed countries but also, and very importantly, emerging economies creating a true multipolarity without any hegemony, and allowing, then, multilateral organisations to be effective.”

He added that emerging economies need a stronger voice in global institutions. “I see India in the centre of those emerging economies, and this is something I would be delighted to discuss with Prime Minister Modi because I have a lot of hope for the role that India can play in shaping this multipolar world,” he said.

Guterres also reflected on India’s historical global influence. He said he is reading about how India has long shaped world civilisation, “starting hundreds of years before Christ and going on for centuries, with an enormous influence of Indian culture, of Indian civilisation that we can see in China, Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean.”

“Even in the time of the Roman Empire, there were very strong connections with India and a very important influence of Indian culture in what is today the Mediterranean area. So it is always an enormous pleasure to visit India,” he said.