Breakneck speed of AI development outpacing oversight and posing risks to children, UN warns

'We do not let medicine reach a child until it is proven safe. We test every toy. Yet AI has reached our children — their learning, their friendships, their most private questions — before anyone asked what it would do to them.'

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has warned artificial intelligence is developing faster than anyone can keep up, calling for globally harmonised rules to reduce potential risks — especially to children.

"A technology that can reshape economies, transform the world of work, sway elections and tilt the balance of security is being deployed faster than anyone, including the people building it, can keep up," Guterres told delegates at the first-ever government-level global dialogue on AI in Geneva.