The United States “totally” rejects global governance of artificial intelligence, White House technology adviser Michael Kratsios said on Friday while attending the India AI Summit, AFP reported.
Kratsios, who is the head of the country’s delegation to the major AI summit happening in New Delhi, made the remarks ahead of an expected leaders’ statement setting out a shared vision on how to handle the divisive technology.
“As the Trump administration has now said many times: We totally reject global governance of AI,” he said, adding that the technology cannot lead to a brighter future if it is controlled by bureaucracies and central authorities.
What does the expert panel aim to do?
UN chief Antonio Guterres announced on Friday that a new expert panel convened by the global body has been formed with an aim to “make human control a technical reality”.
According to Guterres, the advisory group, which was created in August last year, aims to serve as an AI counterpart to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He also said that all 40 members of the panel have now been confirmed, as per the news report.
The AI Impact Summit is the fourth annual international gathering, with a special focus on the risks and opportunities presented by advanced computing power. This year, it’s been held at the Bharat Mandapam in Delhi.
The event has brought dozens of world leaders and ministers from across the world together to deliver a shared view of how to handle artificial intelligence.
Why are executives against ‘excessive regulation’?
At last year’s edition of the AI summit held in Paris, US Vice President JD Vance warned against “excessive regulation”, stating that such a move “could kill a transformative sector”.
In New Delhi, Kratsios said that “international discussion of AI has evolved, as this summit itself attests,” noting the change of the meeting’s name from “AI Safety” to “AI Impact”.
Mirroring Vance’s previous statement, the White House executive said that the evolution of AI is clearly a “positive development”, but “too many international forums, such as the UN’s Global Dialogue on AI Governance, maintain a general atmosphere of fear,” he said.
“We must replace that fear with hope,” Kratsios added, saying that AI has the potential to “advance human flourishing and drive unprecedented prosperity”.
He argued that “ideological, risk-focused obsessions, such as climate or equity, become excuses for bureaucratic management and centralisation”.
“In the name of safety, they increase the danger that these tools will be used for tyrannical control.”
“Focusing AI policy on safety and speculative risks… inhibits a competitive ecosystem, entrenches incumbents, and isolates developing countries from full participation in the AI economy,” Kratsios said during the AI Summit.
The AI Summit featured an ambitious agenda of 700 sessions over its duration, covering themes such as AI safety, governance, ethics, data protection, sovereign AI capabilities and the future of work.
