Runaway AI Needs Urgent Global Checks, Warns Hinton

AI brain inside a lightbulb, symbolizing artificial intelligence and innovation.

If AI is “a very fast car with no steering wheel”, then regulation must provide one, insists Nobel laureate and artificial intelligence pioneer Geoffrey Hinton, widely known as the “godfather” of modern machine learning.

Speaking at the Digital World Conference (DWC): AI for Social Development, co-organised by the UN Research Institute for Social Development, Professor Hinton stressed that rapid advances in AI must be guided more carefully to serve societies rather than undermine them.

“If you ever went out in a car with no brakes, you would be in trouble going downhill,” he told delegates. “But you are in even more trouble if there is no steering wheel.”

His remarks came during a week of intense AI policymaking, as governments and UN bodies stepped up discussions on governance, inclusion and risk management amid the growing integration of artificial intelligence across the global economy.

The haves and the have-nots

The pace of AI’s growth is staggering. According to the Technology and Innovation Report 2025 by UN Trade and Development, the global AI market is projected to grow from $189 billion in 2023 to $4.8 trillion by 2033—creating an economy larger than Japan’s within a decade.

Yet the capacity to build and shape AI remains concentrated in a few economies and firms. Pedro Manuel Moreno warned that such concentration risks deepening global inequalities.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin of the International Telecommunication Union noted that generative AI adoption in the industrialised Global North is growing nearly twice as fast as in the developing Global South.

“Left unaddressed, this is a second great divergence, widening the gap between countries shaping artificial intelligence and those merely consuming it,” she said, adding that gaps in infrastructure, investment and capacity cannot be closed by any single country or organisation alone.

The recent surge in global discussions on AI reflects efforts to ensure all countries can benefit from and regulate the technology as it reshapes economies and societies.

Experts highlighted the need for transparent, accountable and rights-based AI governance to address risks such as bias, opaque algorithms and the concentration of vast amounts of data in the hands of a few large corporations.

Participants also examined AI’s growing role in social protection, labour markets, education and the green energy transition, while stressing the need to protect vulnerable groups and ensure fair distribution of benefits.

Data-driven approach

Proposals for AI governance must be grounded in data, a task being led by the UN’s Independent International Scientific Panel on AI, which recently held its first in-person meeting in Madrid.

Co-chair Maria Ressa said the panel aims to provide an independent and authoritative assessment of how AI systems are shaping societies. She warned that powerful AI tools are accelerating the spread of misinformation, weakening institutions such as the media and courts, and enabling large-scale manipulation.

The panel’s findings will inform the upcoming Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance, scheduled for July in Geneva.

The initiative will bring together all 193 UN member states, along with stakeholders from the private sector, civil society and academia, to develop shared approaches to AI regulation.

Amandeep Gill said the discussions would be grounded in science and global perspectives, aiming to bridge policy and technological expertise in managing one of the most transformative challenges of the modern era.