Speech by Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera at Fordham's 53rd Annual Conference “Building a democratic, competitive and sustainable future for artificial intelligence”

It is good to be back in New York and at Fordham for the annual conference, one of the first major antitrust events of the academic year.

I would like to talk today about one of the most disruptive forces of our time Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

AI represents one of the greatest technological transformations, unlike probably anything we have experienced before.

Until today, innovation has been driven by people: researchers and engineers who designed new solutions and decided on their capabilities. And they could be held responsible for the consequences.

We are building systems that do not simply execute what we tell them to do. They learn and they make decisions. And they may develop themselves beyond our control.

For the first time, we are creating something whose capabilities can develop faster than our own understanding.

Meanwhile the people closest to this technology warn us about it.

Some have openly questioned whether we will be able to keep increasingly capable AI systems under human control. And some have gone as far as warning that advanced AI could pose an existential threat to humanity if we fail to ensure it is aligned with human values.

So, the question is: are we still in time to put meaningful safeguards and make sure that humans remain in control?

Some of the very same people that are developing this technology are calling for urgent action, to put safeguards, to slow the pace of AI to ensure its safety.

While other powerful interests actively fight against any kind of safeguards, in a rush to win the AI race, no matter the cost.  

Some see it as race between superpowers, between east and west. It has worrying echoes of a race between superpowers in the 1950s and 60s, the nuclear arms race.

But if we wait too long, we may no longer be in a position to say stop. This time nobody will have a ‘red button'.

That gives us all a shared responsibility to get the governance of AI right.