YouSaid · the spoken record

Clark

lines on the record

20

first

2014-03-19

most recent

2023-07-18

sittings or episodes

2

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un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

1. “If we do not invest in that, we run the risk of regulatory capture compromising global security and handing over the future to a narrow set of private-sector actors. If we can rise to that challenge, however, I believe we can reap the benefits of AI as a global community and ensure that there is a balance of power between the developers of AI and the citizens of the world.”

   2023-07-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9381 (2023) · source

2. “And because there are no best practices, it is hard for Governments to create policies that can create more accountability for the actors developing the systems. Correspondingly, it means that the private-sector actors enjoy an information advantage when dealing with Governments. In conclusion, any sensible approach to regulation will start with having the ability to evaluate an AI system for a given capability or flaw. Any failed approach will start with grand policy ideas that are not supported by effective measurements and evaluations. It will be through the development of robust and reliable evaluation systems that Governments will be able to hold companies accountable and companies will be able to earn the trust of the world into which they want to deploy their AI systems.”

   2023-07-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9381 (2023) · source

3. “For that reason, it has been encouraging to see many countries emphasize the importance of safety testing and evaluation in their various AI policy proposals, ranging from the European Union’s AI framework to China’s recently announced generative AI rules, and from the Risk Management Framework for AI systems of the National Institute of Standards and Technologies of the United States to the upcoming AI Summit London on AI and AI safety. All of these different AI policy proposals and events rely in some form on testing and evaluating AI systems so that the Governments of the world can invest in the area. Right now, there are no standards or even best practices for how to test frontier systems for issues such as discrimination, misuse and safety.”

   2023-07-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9381 (2023) · source

4. “Who should have access to that power? How should Governments regulate that power? Who should be the actors able to create and sell those so-called experts? And what kinds of experts can we allow to be created? Those are huge questions. Based on my experience, I think that a useful thing that we can do is to work on developing ways to test for capabilities, misuses and potential safety flaws in these systems. If we are creating and distributing new types of workers that will go into the global economy, it stands to reason that we would like to be able to characterize them, evaluate their capabilities and understand their failings. After all, humans go through rigorous evaluation and on-the-job testing for many critical roles, ranging from the emergency services to the military. Why not the same for AI?”

   2023-07-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9381 (2023) · source

5. “I want to challenge everyone listening to this briefing not to think of AI as a specific technology but rather as a type of human labour that can be bought and sold at the speed of a computer and that is getting cheaper and more capable over time. As I have described, it is a form of labour that is being developed by one narrow class of actors — companies. We should be clear-eyed about the immense political leverage that affords. If you can create a substitute or augmentation for human labour and sell it into the world, you will become more influential over time. Many of the challenges of AI policy seem simpler to think about if we look at them this way. How should the nations of the world react to the fact that anyone who has enough money and data can now easily create an artificial expert in a given domain?”

   2023-07-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9381 (2023) · source

6. “That means that once AI systems are developed and deployed, people identify new uses for them that were not anticipated by their developers. Many of them will be positive, but some, as I have mentioned, could be misuses. And the problem of chaotic or unpredictable behaviour is even more challenging. Once deployed, an AI system may exhibit subtle problems that were not identified during its development. We should therefore think very carefully about how to ensure that developers of such systems can be held accountable so that they build and deploy safe and reliable systems that do not compromise global security. In order to dramatize the issue, it may be helpful to use an analogy.”

   2023-07-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9381 (2023) · source

7. “The first is their potential for misuse, and the second is their unpredictability, as well as the fragility inherent in the fact that they are being developed by such a narrow set of actors. With regard to misuse, AI systems have an increasingly broad set of capabilities, and some beneficial capabilities sit alongside others that can pose threats of profound misuse. For example, an AI system that can help us in understanding the science of biology may also be one that can be used to create biological weapons. With regard to unpredictability, a fundamental sense surrounding AI is that we do not understand its systems. It is as though we are building engines without understanding the science of combustion.”

   2023-07-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9381 (2023) · source

8. “And AI models that are drawing attention today, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Bard and my own company Anthropic’s Claude, are themselves also being developed by corporate interests. A lot has therefore happened in 10 years, and we can expect new and even more powerful systems in the coming years. We can expect those trends to continue. Across the world, it is private-sector actors that have the sophisticated computers and large pools of data and capital resources to build such systems, and it therefore seems likely that private-sector actors will continue to define their development. While that will bring huge benefits to humans across the world, it also poses potential threats to peace, security and global stability. Those threats stem from two essential qualities of AI systems.”

   2023-07-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9381 (2023) · source

9. “A decade ago, a company in England called DeepMind published research that showed how to teach an AI system to play old computer games like Space Invaders and Pong. Fast- forward to 2023, and the same techniques that were used in that research are now being used to create AI systems that can beat military pilots in air-fighting simulations, stabilize the plasma in fusion reactors and even design the components of next-generation semiconductors. Similar trends have played out in computer vision. A decade ago, scientists were able to create basic image classifiers and generate very crude, pixelated images. Today image classification is used across the world to inspect goods on production lines, analyse satellite imagery and improve State security.”

   2023-07-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9381 (2023) · source

10. “Mr. Clark: I am here today to offer a brief overview of why artificial intelligence (AI) has become a subject of concern for the world’s nations, what the next few years hold for the development of the technology and some ideas on how policymakers may choose to respond to a historic opportunity. The main takeaway from my remarks should be that we cannot leave the development of artificial intelligence solely to private-sector actors. The Governments of the world must come together, develop State capacity and make the development of powerful AI systems a shared endeavour across all parts of society, rather than one dictated solely by a small number of firms competing with one another in the marketplace. Why am I making this statement? It helps to have a sense of recent history.”

    2023-07-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9381 (2023) · source

11. “I hope that that goal will remain a major priority in the discussion of how to strengthen United Nations peacebuilding and prepare for the review of the United Nations peacebuilding architecture in 2015.”

    2014-03-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7143 (2014) · source

12. “Let me conclude by emphasizing the paramount importance of national ownership and leadership in peacebuilding processes. At the end of the day, sustained peace and long-term development, led and fully owned by countries themselves, is always the goal of peacebuilding. We must support countries to make progress towards that goal as rapidly as possible. That is why it is important to strengthen inclusion, institution-building and mutual accountability as crucial elements in peacebuilding and as foundations for national ownership. While crisis and conflict create many obstacles to such objectives in the short term, we should never lose sight of that long-term goal.”

    2014-03-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7143 (2014) · source

13. “The Mali Stabilization Fund has already had an significnat and positive impact on the situation in the country. When setbacks occur in countries, as they have in such a traumatic way in the Central African Republic and South Sudan in recent months, it is important that we at the United Nations maintain our capability to support and work with local partners and to protect countries' capacities to deal with and respond to the crisis themselves. So often, funding for vital early recovery work with communities is squeezed out during crises and local communities lose the ability to support themselves. Then, when peacebuilding opportunities arise, we are forced to start all over again from a worse position. We must find ways to address that conundrum and to ensure predictable funding for early recovery.”

    2014-03-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7143 (2014) · source

14. “It is therefore important to better integrate risk management in peacebuilding approaches and to ensure that we are better at balancing the risks of failure of individual programmes with the importance of trying to make a difference where we can. Discussions on managing the risks of operating in such difficult environments needs to be ongoing with national Governments and with donors. Pooled funding is one important way of sharing and managing risks together. The United Nations recently established multi-partner trust funds in Mali and Somalia to enable donors to channel funding towards the programmes that may be more difficult for individual donors to support directly. Those pooled funds enable stronger risk mitigation and management through a shared platform and divide the residual risk among several participants.”

    2014-03-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7143 (2014) · source

15. “By setting clear and realistic goals that cover the whole peacebuilding spectrum, including building inclusive politics, security, justice, livelihoods and the delivery of social services, and by agreeing on how to deliver on those goals, we can help to strengthen the credibility of peace processes and peacebuilding and to ensure effective delivery and results. For that approach to work, both national and international actors must be fully committed to delivering on shared goals and be willing to work together. That will help to reduce the risk of failure and to strengthen the chance ofpeace processes succeeding. Nonetheless, success can never be guaranteed, nor will every individual programme in a post-conflict context produce results. Such situations are inherently risky and setbacks are frequent.”

    2014-03-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7143 (2014) · source

16. “If trust in Government institutions is to be built following a conflict, the local level is a good place to start. Peacebuilding requires predictable and sustained international support on the basis of clear and focused priorities and mutual accountability. In recent years, Governments and international actors have agreed on compacts or mutual accountability frameworks to provide that basis and for the ongoing monitoring of progress and dialogue. The United Nations has supported such mutual accountability processes in Afghanistan, Yemen, Sierra Leone and Somalia. We hope that more countries will engage in that way.”

    2014-03-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7143 (2014) · source

17. “An example of an approach that addresses both those elements is to be found in Somalia, where the United Nations is working with the Federal Government to assess and strengthen its capacities to perform core State functions. At the same time, we are also focusing on supporting governance at the local level - the level at which people most frequently engage with the authorities and to which they are most likely to turn for services and support. Our efforts in Somalia have enabled local Governments and municipalities to collect property and business taxes. That revenue is now funding municipal services for people in approximately 16 districts across the country. Local elections are being held, waste is being collected and roads are being maintained.”

    2014-03-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7143 (2014) · source

18. “In that respect, the United Nations worked with local authorities in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic ofthe Congo in 2013 to investigate five recent incidents of serious crimes affecting 900 victims of sexual and gender-based violence, murder and pillage and to bring those responsible to justice. Institution-building is closely linked with peacebuilding. However, we need to take a less narrow view of that nexus and to strengthen our understanding of how a valid social contract can contribute to peace and how international actors can support such a contract developing. Without both responsive and inclusive State institutions and a vibrant civil society, there is unlikely to be either sustained peace or a basis for long-term development.”

    2014-03-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7143 (2014) · source

19. “For members of the United Nations Development Group, a more inclusive approach to peacebuilding than we often see today is a key priority. Achieving sustainable peace requires the engagement and participation of all social groups, beyond the main protagonists to a conflict, and urban centres. It requires meaningful participation by women, youth and other marginalized groups. It also requires that we maintain a sustained presence at the local level in order to understand and respond to the immediate and longer-term needs of communities, including on the issues of livelihoods, basic social services, the provision of security and justice for victims.”

    2014-03-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7143 (2014) · source

20. “Ms. Clark: I thank the Council for the invitation to brief it on this topic. Since the peacebuilding architecture was established, in 2005, the United Nations has made important progress in improving its approaches to peacebuilding, building on lessons learned and practical experience on the ground. Today, peacebuilding is mainstreamed across the United Nations system and is used in different contexts and situations affected by conflict and violence. Peacebuilding has also been a driver of reform and initiatives such as the relatively new United Nations global focal point for police, justice and corrections. Individual United Nations agencies have developed their own peacebuilding strategies on the basis of their mandates and programmes. However, there continue to be some important challenges in United Nations support for peacebuilding.”

    2014-03-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7143 (2014) · source