Remarks by the President of the General Assembly
H.E. Ms. Annalena Baerbock,
High-level multi-stakeholder informal meeting to launch the Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance
September 25 2025, 3 PM
[As Delivered]
The printing press opened minds.
The Industrial Revolution reshaped societies.
The internet connected lives across continents.
Our future has always been shaped by technology.
But now the pace has doubled; maybe even tripled.
As we could see in the movie, what once unfolded over centuries and decades now happens in months.
Artificial intelligence is the newest of these revolutions.
What recently seemed like science fiction is now transforming our daily lives.
It can detect a rare cancer in seconds.
It can tell farmers when the rains will come.
It can guide rescuers through rubble.
But it can also do harm.
It can turn hidden biases into a denied job.
It can turn doubt into distrust.
Anyone who has used social media has seen the fake images, videos, and sound clips generated by AI.
Some are silly. Others are dangerous.
Many are biased.
It can be used to generate exploitative content.
Ninety-nine percent of those targeted in deepfake pornography are women.
And it can blur the line between truth and lies — a danger for every open society, because free societies depend on free information.
As Nobel laureate Maria Ressa has written:
“If you don’t have facts, you don’t have truth. If you don’t have truth, you don’t have trust. Without all three, we have no shared reality, and democracy as we know it—and all meaningful human endeavours—are dead.”
Dear Prime Minister of Spain,
Dear Foreign Minister of Costa Rica
Dear Secretary General
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen
When nations gathered in San Francisco in 1945, they gave the world more than a treaty.
They gave us a compass.
A north star guiding our way through the unknowns and the storms.
The Pact for the Future, adopted last session, reaffirmed that compass while adjusting our sails for today.
Its Global Digital Compact is the world’s first common agreement on how artificial intelligence should be governed; a historic milestone.
Building on that, we created the International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence and the Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance.
The objective of this Dialogue is to ensure every country, large and small, has a voice in shaping this technology. Guided by our Charter. Guided by our compass.
Because in a divided world, Member States agreed on one thing: the power of AI is too important to be left to just a privileged few.
We must harness its potential, minimise its risks, and equalise its reach.
Experts say AI could accelerate progress on nearly 80 percent of the Sustainable Development Goals. If we decide to do so.
Already, UN entities are putting it to use.
- UNDP’s AI-powered Crisis Risk Dashboard acts as an early-warning system, monitoring hate speech and migration to detect areas of risk.
- UNHCR’s Data Innovation Programme uses AI to improve humanitarian response and provide timely assistance to refugees.
- WFP’s Hunger Map LIVE predicts and tracks hunger risk in over 90 countries.
With all that we do not only save lives. But we can also save a lot of money. If we know when the storms are hitting, we can evacuate people, and also, goods.
Yet three challenges loom.
First, concentration.
The AI market is worth trillions, but its benefits are concentrated.
A handful of companies control nearly half of global research.
Only a few nations host the data centres that power AI.
Most of the world, especially the Global South, is left on the sidelines.
That is why we must build capacity everywhere and ensure all nations have a place at the table.
Second, governance.
AI is powerful—and fast.
Too fast for our current rules.
Without inclusive oversight, standards, and safeguards, we risk a world where innovation outpaces ethics.
Governance must be both fast enough and fair enough to keep pace.
Third, sustainability.
AI’s enormous appetite for energy, unless met with clean power, could worsen the climate crisis instead of helping to solve it.
Ethics, fairness, and sustainability must be at the heart of this revolution.
Excellencies,
Generative AI is racing into our lives.
Within this decade, it will reshape industries, economies, and societies faster than any technology before it.
To harness it, we must invest in people: in digital skills, in inclusive education, in AI literacy, so no one is left behind.
We must put in place governance that is both fast enough and fair enough to match the speed of innovation.
Because the future will not be shaped by algorithms alone.
It will be shaped by the choices we make together. If we decide so.
I thank you.