Joint Nordic-Baltic statement at UNSC Arria-formula meeting on Artificial Intelligence

Check Against Delivery

Mr President,

I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the Nordic-Baltic States, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden – and my own country Denmark.

Let me start by thanking the United Arab Emirates and Albania for convening this timely meeting, following up on the first historic meeting on artificial intelligence in the Security Council held in July.

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AI technologies are evolving fast, and the use of AI tools can create immense opportunities, but can also be misused to pose great security risks.

Just within the past year we have witnessed a dramatic increase in the accessibility of AI, which is now used by a wide audience in their everyday lives. We already now see how this new technology can bring about a large increase in productivity and growth.

At the same time, the AI-enabled spread of mis- and disinformation also threatens social cohesion, trust, dialogue and peace.

AI also poses significant risks to the Security Council’s ability to carry out its mandate. In volatile conflict situations, AI-enabled rapid spread of disinformation and manipulated content can contribute to further polarization and hatred among local populations. Moreover, when UN peacekeepers are subject to disinformation campaigns, their ability to implement their mandate is put at risk, while jeopardizing their security.

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However, AI also holds the potential to counter these exact risks: It can improve monitoring, analysis and foresight to enhance the UN’s ability to detect disinformation, hate speech, as well as gender-based violence and harassment. Countering threats from AI on public discourse, however also requires a plurality of independent and quality media. Media literacy training and independent fact-checking organisations are therefore useful supplements to this work.

AI tools can also improve early warning systems by forecasting potential risks and thus contribute to mandate implementation including protection of civilians. They can be used to analyze conflict trends and stakeholder behaviors in order to inform UN mediation and advocacy efforts, including to better ensure the participation of women and youth. In turn, this could enable the Security Council’s ability to design more effective and tailor-made peacekeeping mandates as well as informing strategic communication strategies.

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As the development of AI technology is fast evolving, the Security Council must engage with a broad group of stakeholders to keep updated about emerging opportunities and risks posed by new technologies, including by continuously inviting relevant experts from the private sector, civil society and academia to brief the council.

Social media platforms should also be held accountable for their actions, such as their content moderation efforts, in order to ensure robust algorithms that are trained on diverse and inclusive data sets. What we need is a strong global governance framework for AI that is coherent, human-centric, transparent and accountable, ensuring respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The Global Digital Compact will constitute an important opportunity in this regard.    

EU’s new AI Act can serve as inspiration in these efforts. We look forward to the recommendation from the High Level Advisory Body on AI in this regard.

Thank you.