Statement by Permanent Representative Ambassador Sérgio França Danese at the UNSC Open Debate on Artificial Intelligence
July 18th, 2023

Mister President,

I thank the Secretary-General for his briefing today and for joining us in the briefing. I also thank Mr. Jack Clark and Mr. Yi Zeng for their statements.

"The rapid development of AI holds immense potential to bolster our global security architecture, augment decision-making processes, and enhance humanitarian efforts. We must also address the multifaceted challenges it poses, including the potential for autonomous weapons, cyber threats, and the exacerbation of existing inequalities. As we embark on this crucial discussion, let us seek a comprehensive understanding of the risks and opportunities associated with AI, and work towards harnessing its potential for the greater benefit of humanity while ensuring the preservation of peace, stability, and human rights."

The paragraph I just read was entirely written in ChatGPT. Although with conceptual imprecisions, it shows how sophisticated these tools have become.

This technology is developing so fast that even our best researchers are still unable to assess the full scale of the challenges that await us and the benefits these new technologies can provide.

Any discussion today must be couched in the humility that we do not fully know what it is that we do not know about AI. What we know for sure is that artificial intelligence is not human intelligence. Most AI relies on large amounts of data and, through complex algorithms, manages to establish patterns and relationships that allow them to generate contextually appropriate results. The outcomes, therefore, are crucially dependent on the inputs. Human oversight is essential to avoid bias and errors. Otherwise, we are running the risk that the aphorism "trash in, trash out" will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Unlike other innovations with potential implications for security, AI has been mostly developed as a civilian application. Hence, it would be premature to see AI primarily through the lens of international peace and security, as its peaceful uses are likely to produce the most significant effects on our societies. Nevertheless, we can predict with certainty that its applications will be extended to the military field with relevant impact on peace and security.

While the Council should remain vigilant and ready to respond to any incidents involving the use of AI, we must also be cautious not to overly "securitize" this topic by concentrating discussions in this Chamber.

Due to the intrinsically multidisciplinary nature of AI, which deals with every aspect of life, international discussions must remain open and inclusive. Only a wide and diverse range of views will allow us to scratch the surface and start to make sense of the different facets of AI.

This Open Debate is a good start for bringing in different views on the development and use of AI.

Nevertheless, in light of the wide ranging implications and impacts of AI, the General Assembly, with its universal composition is the forum best suited for a structured, long-term discussion on Artificial Intelligence.

AI is crucial among the different topics under the mandate of the ongoing Open Ended Working Group on ICTs, which will hold its fifth substantive session next week. This group, which is open to all UN Member States, has been able to make progress on gradually developing global, common understandings on ICTs issues related to international peace and security, despite challenging geopolitical circumstances. Due to their particular nature, this is what we should aim for when discussing challenges deriving from cyber technologies.

Mister and Madam Presidents,

Military applications of AI and especially in the use of force must strictly abide by international humanitarian law as enshrined in the Geneva Conventions and other pertinent international commitments.

Brazil has been consistently guided by the concept of "meaningful human control". As approved in 2019 by the high contracting parties of the convention on certain conventional weapons, guiding principle (b) indicates that human responsibility for decisions on the use of weapons systems must be retained, since accountability cannot be transferred to machines. The centrality of the human element in any autonomous system is essential for the establishment of ethics standards and for full compliance with international humanitarian law. There is no replacement for human judgment and accountability.

Military applications of AI must be based on transparency and accountability throughout their life cycle, from development to deployment and use. Moreover, weapons systems with autonomous functions should eliminate bias in their system’s operations.

We must move ahead swiftly with the progressive development of regulations and norms governing the use of autonomous weapons systems via robust norms to prevent biases and abuses, and to guarantee compliance with International Law, particularly International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law.

Compliance with International Law is mandatory to State uses of AI technologies as well as to any use this Council may wish to make of them in its peacekeeping missions or in its broader mandate for the preservation of international peace and security.

Beyond the challenges posed by conventional weapons with autonomous functions, we should not shy away from issuing a very stern caution as to the inherent risks posed by the interaction of AI and weapons of mass destruction.

We took note with alarm of the news that AI-assisted computer systems were capable of developing, in a matter of hours, new poisonous chemical compounds and of designing new pathogens and molecules. We also must not allow the possibility that nuclear weapons might be linked to AI, at the risk of our common future.

Madam President,

AI has tremendous potential both to remake and to break our societies in the coming years. Navigating between the two will require a broad and concerted international effort, which will include - but is in no way limited - to this Council.

The UN remains the only organization capable of promoting the global coordination needed to oversee and shape the development of AI so that it works to the betterment of humanity and according to the shared purposes and principles that have brought us here.

Thank you.