The UN just passed its first resolution on AI

The United Nations is laying the groundwork for an international consensus on AI rules with a new US-led resolution adopted unanimously this week.

The nonbinding text, co-sponsored by more than 120 member states, aims to shape development of AI in a way that promotes human rights and the org’s own development goals. While the move lacks many specifics or enforcement teeth, it marks the UN’s first resolution around the technology and builds on some previous gestures toward a global governance framework for AI.

The resolution is the fruit of more than 40 hours of sessions, which featured “lots of heated conversations” between the US and “adversaries” like China and Russia, an anonymous White House official told the Washington Post.

The resolution calls for “internationally interoperable safeguards, practices, and standards that promote innovation and prevent the fragmentation of the governance,” as well as closing “digital divides between and within countries.”

Why it matters: The resolution comes as governments around the world have been crafting regulations aimed at reining in some of AI’s downsides, perhaps most notably the European Union’s AI Act, which passed this month. But world leaders meeting in the UK last fall agreed that some form of international cooperation is also needed to align these various regimes.

The US’s role in passing the resolution could also help to position it as a leader on this issue on the international stage, even as Congress has yet to accomplish much in the way of AI laws at home. While President Biden’s sweeping executive order on the technology has been gradually going into effect since last fall, Washington lawmakers have fallen behind their counterparts in Brussels when it comes to more concrete legislation.

When Microsoft formed a partnership with French AI startup Mistral last month, Gartner distinguished VP analyst Jason Wong noted that the decision came amid fragmentation in regulatory landscapes around the world.

“If you’re looking at the regulatory landscape of AI, we’re starting to see shifts in the respective regions like the European regions as compared to North America, and compared to Asia-Pacific, Australia, and New Zealand,” he told us then.

Global moves like the UN’s resolution could eventually help to bridge some of these gaps.