UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who established the panel, known as the adoption “a foundational step toward global scientific understanding of AI”. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters
The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to approve a 40-member world scientific panel on the impacts and dangers of artificial intelligence, with the United States strongly objecting.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who established the panel, known as the adoption “a foundational step toward global scientific understanding of AI”.
“In a world where AI is racing ahead,” he mentioned on Thursday (February 12, 2026), “this panel will provide what’s been missing — rigorous, independent scientific insight that enables all member states, regardless of their technological capacity, to engage on an equal footing.” He has described it as the primary totally impartial world scientific physique devoted to bridging the data hole in AI and assessing its real-world financial and social impacts.
The vote within the 193-member meeting was 117-2, with the United States and Paraguay voting “no” and Tunisia and Ukraine abstaining. America’s allies in Europe, Asia and elsewhere voted in favour together with Russia, China and lots of creating international locations.
Objection from United States
U.S. Mission counsellor Lauren Lovelace known as the panel “a significant overreach of the UN’s mandate and competence” and said, “AI governance is not a matter for the UN to dictate.” As the world chief in AI, the United States is resolved to do all it could possibly to speed up AI innovation and construct up its infrastructure, she mentioned, and the Trump administration will assist “like-minded nations working together to encourage the development of AI in line with our shared values”.
“We will not cede authority over AI to international bodies that may be influenced by authoritarian regimes seeking to impose their vision of controlled surveillance societies,” Ms. Lovelace mentioned, including that the Trump administration is anxious about “the non-transparent way” the panel was chosen.
Mr. Guterres mentioned the 40 members had been chosen from greater than 2,600 candidates after an impartial evaluation by the International Telecommunications Union, the UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies and UNESCO, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. They will serve for three-year phrases.
Members are predominantly AI consultants but in addition come from different disciplines and embody Maria Ressa, a Filipino journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 2021.
There are two Americans on the panel: Vipin Kumar, a University of Minnesota professor focusing on AI, knowledge mining and high-performance computing analysis, and Martha Palmer, a retired University of Colorado professor and linguistics professional whose analysis contains capturing the that means of phrases for advanced sentences in AI.
There are two Chinese consultants on the panel: Song Haitao, dean of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, and Wang Jian, an professional in cloud-computing know-how on the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
Ukraine mentioned it abstained as a result of it objected to Russia’s Andrei Neznamov, an professional in AI regulation, ethics, and governance, being on the panel.
Published – February 13, 2026 11:10 am IST