Global experts call for AI safety, regulation, and international cooperation at Carnegie Technology Summit

The experts also warned of AI's role in escalating cyberattacks, calling for collective action.

On being asked about what countries are doing about AI threats, Ernst Noorman, Ambassador at Large for Cyber Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Netherlands, said, "We believe in enormous potential of AI but indeed, it comes with threats, like all new technologies... A year ago, we agreed on the first AI resolution at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Twenty countries supported the resolution, and it was adopted by general consensus to work on a secure, safe and trustworthy AI."

He added, "We see the Brussels effect with the (EU) AI Act. We see many countries looking at the AI Act and thinking about how it can be adopted. Even in India, everyone agrees we need to work on guardrails for safe and secure AI, to create trust among our citizens, because I think that if you have trust in the system, then you will adopt it."

Maria Adebahr, Director for Cyber Foreign and Security Policy, Federal Foreign Office, Germany said that the growing challenge of cyberthreats must be addressed at UN level.

"AI will lead to an increase in cyberattacks. In the absence of regulations, this growing challenge must be addressed by individual states, coalitions of states, and at the level of the UN," Adebahr said.

Sachin Kakkar, Site Lead, Privacy, Safety, and Security, Google India, highlighted how AI can ease the burden on security engineers and said, "We believe that AI is going to take away the human toil that a security engineer faces... What remains is the complex task, which humans will do. And we can reorient the work force towards that, therefore tilting the balance in favour of the defender."

MU Nair, National Cybersecurity Coordinator for the Government of India, stressed the need for countries to work together to build safety rules against cyber threats.

"The cyber threats today are across boundaries. It can be reaching out to any part of the world to any part of the world. So we need to have a lot of cooperation. We need to sit together, form guardrails and sit together to see how the entire landscape can be protected," Nair said.

The Global Technology Summit, the flagship dialogue on geo-technology is co-hosted by External Affairs Ministry.