Seizo Onoe, Director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, ITU
Artificial intelligence (AI) needs to be governed responsibly, in the best interests of everyone, everywhere. Standards and capacity building must help make this happen.
We have seen great emphasis on this in 2024, from the G20, the United Nations High-Level Advisory Body on AI, ITU’s AI for Good Global Summit, as well as in the newly adopted Global Digital Compact.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is well positioned to meet this expectation – together with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).
Each year on 14 October, we celebrate World Standards Day and pay tribute to the many thousands of experts who work together year-round to develop international standards.
This World Standards Day, we are calling for global investment in our work on AI.
Collaborative processes pushing new frontiers
Collaboration to develop standards helps bring key innovations to global scale. That’s more important now than ever.
With every breakthrough in science and technology, we need to come together to develop the necessary standards to let us thrive as we cross new frontiers.
That’s what our standardization processes are built for.
Our Global Standards Symposium (GSS-24) in New Delhi, India, has made the day particularly special this year.
We are exploring innovations in many areas – from smart cities and virtual worlds to blockchain and open source. AI features prominently throughout.
The governing conference for ITU standardization work, the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA-24), immediately follows the symposium and continues until 24 October.
Committed to consensus
ITU, ISO and IEC are the leading developers of international technical standards. Together, we form the World Standards Cooperation.
We offer a standardization platform that has earned the trust of innovators worldwide.
We should take full advantage of this platform to ensure AI flourishes sustainably, as a force for good worldwide.
We are guiding comprehensive, coordinated standards development for AI.
And we want everyone to be a part of it.
This week in New Delhi we are hosting the first edition of our new International AI Standards Summit, with a second edition planned for 2025.
We are leading a timely collaboration initiative on standards for AI and multimedia authenticity, which are vital to detect deepfakes and support a trusted information environment, first announced in May at ITU’s AI for Good Global Summit.
And we are now collaborating to develop an AI standards database, a key priority for the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology.
AI expertise for everyone
Tech innovation in our WTSA-24 host country will be on show on 18 October at AI for Good Impact India, the initiative’s first regional event. We welcome you to join us in New Delhi or online.
We must ensure that the AI revolution leaves no one behind, and that’s exactly the aim of ITU’s AI for Good Impact Initiative – announced at our Global Summit in May as a pro-active new arm of the AI for Good platform that ITU started with UN partners back in 2017.
Our Impact Initiative also includes a new AI Skills Coalition, launched last month.
We are linking AI innovators with opportunities to fund and scale up promising AI solutions for each of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, across every region of the world.
We will keep rolling out regional AI for Good Impact events, along with research and policy guidance on AI for sustainable development.
Our Impact Initiative drives global competitions to crowdsource AI solutions and boost AI expertise, building on the momentum of our competitions since 2020. And it hosts accelerators for startups and small and medium-sized enterprises, such as the AI for Good Innovation Factory and the associated Startup Acceleration Programme.
Join our global community
We are living through a time of extraordinary transformation. This is an exciting time to be alive.
New technologies are creating unprecedented opportunities to create a better life for all. But they are also creating complex challenges, and we must rise to those challenges together.
The spirit of collaboration and consensus that drives standards development is exactly the spirit we need to succeed.
Government, industry, academia and civil society can all help shape ITU’s work – and help make our inclusive technical standards work for everyone, everywhere.
If you or your organization are not already contributing to ITU standards, I urge you to join our global community.
Header image: Seizo Onoe speaking at the opening of the Global Standards Symposium (GSS-24). ©ITU/ D. Woldu
