UN agency pushes AI ethics standards at Bangkok event as US-China tech rivalry deepens
A United Nations agency is rallying policymakers, non-government organisations and academics to support its ethics guidelines on artificial intelligence (AI) at a time when the technology is rapidly changing the world.
Unesco, the 194-member UN heritage agency that produced the world's first – and so far only – global AI ethics standards four years ago, hosted a forum in Bangkok this week to drive the adoption of its recommendations. However, there is a long way to go before the recommendations could be turned into a universal, actionable framework amid
an intensifying AI race between the US and China , according to analysts.
At the opening on Wednesday of the third Unesco Global Forum on the Ethics of AI, Unesco director general Audrey Azoulay called for collaboration among governments, businesses and civil society to come up with an international solution. 'That is what Unesco is working to provide – preparing the world for AI and preparing AI for the world, ensuring it serves the common good,' she said.
The message comes as hopes are dimming for a global consensus on AI ethics. A bipartisan group of US lawmakers introduced a bill in both chambers of Congress
to ban the federal use of China-linked AI tools such as DeepSeek, in the latest sign of hostility in the tech rivalry between the world's two largest economies.
A DeepSeek display seen during the Global Developer Conference on February 22, 2025 in Shanghai. Photo: VCG via Getty Images
Meanwhile, the world's largest AI companies, from US-based OpenAI and Google to China's DeepSeek, were absent from the forum, which attracted more than 1,000 participants and 35 government ministers, mainly from Asia-Pacific, Africa and Latin America.
When asked how other countries would respond to the divisions in the AI world, Wisit Wisitsora-At, Permanent Secretary at the Thai Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, said Thailand would not take sides in the US-China competition, adding that it would try to develop its own AI ecosystem.
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