Guiding AI through APEC and Asean

Humanity’s fate cannot be left to an algorithm.

- LEE SANG-HWA

With this stark warning, UN Secretary-General Anténio Guterres captured both the promise and the peril of technology at the recent Security Council Open Debate on Artificial Intelligence and International Peace and Security, presided over by President Lee Jae Myung of the Republic of Korea.

Al, he said, was already rewriting human existence in real time, transforming how we learn, work, communicate and even what we can trust.

However, in the wrong hands, AI could unleash cyberattacks in minutes, fuel disinformation that corrodes democracy and create autonomous weapons capable of killing without human control. “Technology must be our servant — not our master,” Guterres urged, as he called for universal guardrails, global norms and above all, human dignity at the core of Al governance.

The Philippines echoed this cautionary optimism. As Secretary of Foreign Affairs Ma. Theresa P. Lazaro stressed in her address to the 80th UN General Assembly (UNGA) last month: “Technology is the other defining force of our age: a connector, an enabler, an equalizer. Artificial intelligence offers promise but carries profound risks. We must help build digital societies that bridge development divides rather than widen them, conforming with safeguards against misuse.”

Even as the UN enters its 80th year, the debates at the UNGA once again revealed different visions of how to address today’s complex challenges. Despite diverse voices and competing perspectives under one roof, the UN remains, eight decades on, as relevant as ever.