AI threatens to widen inequality among states: UN | United Nations News

The report warns of a potential ‘great divergence’, with developed states making gains and others being left behind.

A UN report warns that artificial intelligence threatens to increase inequality between developed and developing countries.

The report, titled “The Next Great Divergence”, released on Tuesday by the United Nations Development Programme’s Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, calls for urgent, coordinated policy action to manage the impact of the technology.

It warns of the possibility of “divergence” between rich and poor states as the impact of technology reverses decades of declining global inequality.

“We believe that AI is ushering in a new era of increasing inequality between countries after years of convergence over the last 50 years,” Philippe Schellekens, the bureau’s chief economist, said at a briefing in Geneva, according to the Reuters news agency.

The report argues that AI, like the industrial revolution before it, has the potential to unlock unprecedented opportunities or deepen existing divisions in a global landscape with vast gaps in wealth, skills and digital access.

If poorer states are left behind in the AI ​​revolution, rich countries will also suffer, Schellekens said.

“If inequality continues to grow, its effects will become even more dire, in terms of the security agenda, in terms of forms of undocumented migration,” he worries.

Asia Pacific at the center of change

The report focuses on challenges and opportunities in the Asia Pacific region, but its authors said the recommendations should resonate globally.

The region, home to more than 55 percent of the world’s population, is at the center of technological change, accounting for more than half of global AI users, the report said.

It said the technology is already bringing benefits such as improving tuition in remote schools, speeding up disease detection, expanding credit access for small businesses and strengthening disaster response.

The report estimates this could boost annual GDP growth in the region by about 2 percentage points, with ASEAN economies achieving about $1 trillion in additional GDP over the next decade.

However, AI technology has the potential to deliver benefits unevenly, widening the gap between the rich and the poor.

While early dividends are flowing into advanced economies like Singapore, Japan and China, countries with weak connectivity, unreliable power and limited technology skills are missing out.

Meanwhile, millions of jobs, especially those of women and youth, face high risk of automation without policy intervention.

“Nobody can predict with certainty where AI will take us in the future, nor can we fully imagine what it might help create or destroy,” the report said.

“Ultimately, it should not be machines but the world’s people who choose which technologies to prioritize and how best to use them,” says UNDP.