Op-Ed: Canada tries to promote AI safety and equity at the UN

In the face of constant AI revelations and its ever-spreading economic effects, Canada is pushing for global action and consensus on AI rules, safety, and equity.

At the same time, a clear AI gap between wealthy and developing countries is widening. Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations David Lametti made the point succinctly to the Canadian press recently:

“The UN remains critically important, (it) remains perhaps the only institution in the world that can convene that kind of discussion on a more or less equal footing between Meta, Amazon Web, Microsoft, Apple and Google — and all of these other countries.”

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has come to more or less the same view from a different direction based on AI’s impact on global business and wider applications on trade. Loans and finance are particularly sensitive, and they’re already creating issues for developing countries. Exclusion from credit markets based on AI loan decisions alone creates capital problems that can stymie business growth and development.

The WEF estimates that “The global trade finance gap stands at $2.5 trillion, concentrated almost entirely in the emerging market corridors where transaction data is thinnest.” 

This is where the “equity” issue espoused by Canada becomes critical.  Such a huge shortfall in capital effectively shuts down trade almost entirely due to AI procedural behaviour in managing finance.

A tricky reality for the developing world

The UN’s own data supports this view with some added caveats. The many obvious opportunities for developing countries include significant burdens on their capital and raise many questions regarding even their capacity to develop.

According to the UNDP Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific (RBAP):

The infrastructure investment needed to advance AI is already a magnitude more than the current SDG financing gap. This is why widespread AI adoption must be treated as a central development objective. 

The adoption and application realities are much more demanding than for the least developed countries. The UN is advocating AI as a critical development asset, but 1.2 billion people are being left behind.

Canada’s broad-brush UN approach to these problems may be the only realistic way of making the issues visible or even actionable. The vast mix of problems simply has no coherent profile. The world’s priorities are elsewhere.  The slow drip of headlines for AI adoption in developing countries are a predictably chaotic and ineffectual sprinkle of anecdotes compared to the high-profile Big Tech news that drowns out all other considerations.

A polarized trade environment and China’s AI push into developing markets

The much bigger picture is a destructive form of technological polarization at the worst possible time. Geopolitics has created a series of minefields. Globalization is the world’s trade reality, and its reach is total throughout all economies.

Apart from Canada, the West isn’t providing much acknowledgment, much less leadership, for the rest of the world. China, however, was already promoting a “Digital Silk Road” earlier this year. According to the East Asia Forum, “This ambitious undertaking aims to link nearly 150 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe and beyond through a modern network of rails, roads and ports.”

The Chinese initiative is backed up by DeepSeek and its built-in business support networks. China is deploying AI and automation at an extraordinary speed.

The contrast between China and the US AI couldn’t be sharper, and it’s a grim dichotomy:

US trade policies have effectively created an obstacle course. These policies and the often-negative reactions to them now define global trade in the short term.  

The Chinese open-source AI approach is the exact opposite of the dogmatic US proprietary stance. Open source is by far the easiest option for introducing AI.

Big capital investment in AI is a physical impossibility for many nations. The US may have priced itself out of some markets entirely.

Adopting a whole new class of technology and its support systems without even basic guidelines is equally impossible and unrealistic.

At ground level, Chinese AI and automation are being deployed across all industrial sectors, whereas US AI is far more high-end and exclusionary.

A US or China version of standardization of AI practices is therefore likely to be a major sticking point for the world as a whole. The two environments aren’t compatible.

Canada to the rescue? Maybe, and at least it’s a start.

By taking on the seemingly rather thankless task of addressing the realities of global AI adoption, Canada is lifting a very heavy load.

At the risk of euphemism, rules, fairness, and equity haven’t exactly been hot topics for Big Tech, Big Money, or anyone else. The US, in particular, has been actively trying to block AI regulation at the Federal level.

For global AI to work at all, standards are essential. Consider the possibilities of AI generating trade disputes and exacerbating the current situations. Equity and common practice are the basis of trade.

Failure to address these issues simply guarantees future problems, disputes, and dysfunction on a global scale. The world should be paying attention.

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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.