Istanbul, August 6 (HNA) – United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has urged world leaders, technology companies, and others to work together to ensure the safe use of Artificial Intelligence.
The Secretary-General warned that without greater international cooperation, the technology could widen global inequality instead of advancing sustainable development. The unregulated usage of AI has direct impacts on our environment, children, and weapons systems that are developing at a rapid pace without close human oversight.
The Secretary-General said that nations must come together to increase the safety of Artificial Intelligence, while mitigating its detrimental impacts in four critical areas.
The environment
AI is hungry for land, water and power, and the data centers behind it already consume more electricity than most nations.
“By 2030, they could use more power than all but five countries – and enough water to meet the basic needs of all 1.3 billion residents of sub‑Saharan Africa for an entire year,” Guterres said.
Despite these obvious concerns, communities are often uninformed about the environmental impact of the infrastructure rising around them.
In response, the Secretary-General has proposed the AI Environmental Transparency Initiative, calling on every major AI company to measure and publicly disclose the full environmental impact of its systems – carbon, water, and land footprints – and to commit to powering every data centre with renewable energy by 2030.
Child safety
AI has reached our children – their learning, their friendships, their most private questions – before anyone asked what it would do to them. The Secretary-General has called 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 companies 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,” the Secretary-General said.
AI-enabled weapons systems
As Artificial Intelligence moves onto the battlefield, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has shared his deep concern about the potentially disastrous consequences. Describing the taking of human life by AI weapons as “morally repugnant,” the Secretary-General has stressed:
“Some decisions must remain forever human – none more than taking a human life.”
The Secretary-General said machines selecting and engaging their target and taking a life — without human control and judgment – must be banned by international law.
Human oversight
In order for AI to be used responsibly and ethically, it requires close cooperation from Governments, companies, and scientists.
“We may be the last generation able to set the terms on which humanity and machines coexist,” Guterres said.
The Secretary-General has stressed that we are tasked to help build a future of AI, “by humanity, with humanity and for all humanity.” AI governance cannot be governed by a handful of countries or companies; every nation needs a seat at the table.
He insisted that any future agreement must be “worthy of global trust” and put safety first.
It is time to come clean. If AI is to help build a better future, it must be honest about what it costs us now.