Biden Warns of AI’s ‘Profound Risks’ in UN General Assembly Speech

President Joe Biden waves as he leaves the stage during the U.N. General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters in New York City on Sept. 24, 2024. Michael Santiago/Getty Images

President Joe Biden on Tuesday warned world leaders of the profound dangers stemming from the development of artificial intelligence (AI).

Biden delivered a keynote address on Sep. 24 to the U.N. General Assembly in New York City, where he said that governments held “a responsibility to prepare our citizens for the future.”

“We’ll see more technological change, I argue, in the next two to 10 years [than] we have in the last 50 years,” Biden said.

“Artificial intelligence is going to change our ways of life, our ways of work, and our ways of war,” he added.

Biden’s warning comes at a time of heightened international tension, with wars raging in eastern Europe and the Middle East and threatening to erupt in the Indo-Pacific.

He warned of AI’s use in creating “profound risks, from deepfakes to disinformation to novel pathogens to bioweapons.”

What’s more, authoritarian countries such as China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia have all sought to leverage AI to augment their efforts to destabilize the United States and its allies in the cyber realm.

China-based hackers, for example, have used AI to impersonate American voters and organize networks of semi-automated social media accounts in order to amplify disinformation apparently aimed at increasing distrust and enmity among Americans.

Malign foreign election interference is just one of the dangers of AI.

The technology is also being deployed at a never-before-seen scale by militaries around the world. Both China and the United States are seeking to deploy AI, automation, and robotics across their militaries.

Senior U.S. military leadership envisions a predominantly robotic Army within the next decade. China, meanwhile, has begun to deploy wholly automated and uncrewed ships, including some with the capability of launching drones.

The United States has struggled to develop a robust policy framework to govern the development of AI, with some lawmakers expressing dismay that high-profile hearings and briefings have not resulted in tangible benefits within the legislative sphere.

Domestically, it is widely believed that AI will also destroy white-collar jobs on a scale never seen before.

Speaking to Congress last year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that AI would likely destabilize society and eventually lay waste to many jobs that currently exist.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) also said at the time, citing classified security briefings, that the mass loss of white-collar jobs would likely trigger increased destabilization and societal unrest.

Still, Biden said that the threats posed by AI now are likely only “the tip of the iceberg” of what’s to come, but that “nothing is certain.”

To prepare for the mass disruptions to societies and economies the world over, he said, nations must act “to ensure AI safety, security, and trustworthiness” and “ensure that AI supports, rather than undermines, the core principles that human life has value and all humans deserve dignity.”

“As AI grows more powerful, it ... must grow more responsive to our collective needs and values,” Biden said.

“We must make certain that the awesome capabilities of AI will be used to uplift and empower everyday people, not to give dictators more powerful shackles on the human spirit.”