Marietje Schaake, international policy director at Stanford University Cyber Policy Center and international policy fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, will serve on a new AI Advisory Board for the United Nations.  United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said the goal of the board is to support the international community’s efforts to govern artificial intelligence. “For developing economies, AI offers the possibility of leapfrogging outdated technologies and bringing services directly to people who need them most. The transformative potential of AI for good is difficult even to grasp. And without entering into a host of doomsday scenarios, it is already clear that the malicious use of AI could undermine trust in institutions, weaken social cohesion and threaten democracy itself,” Mr. Guterres said. “For all these reasons, I have called for a global, multidisciplinary, multistakeholder conversation on the governance of AI so that its benefits to humanity – all of humanity – are maximized, and the risks contained and diminished.”

Schaake served as a Member of European Parliament for the Dutch liberal democratic party between 2009 and 2019, where she focused on trade, foreign affairs, and technology policies. Marietje is an (Advisory) Board Member with a number of non-profits including MERICS, ECFR, ORF and AccessNow, writes a monthly column for the Financial Times and serves as (independent) Special Advisor to Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, Margrethe Vestager. She also serves on President Macron’s ‘Tech Thinkers’ Advisory Council and produces Tech Policy Watch at the Cyber Policy Center.

The first meeting of the Advisory Board will take place on 27 October 2023. Find out more at: www.un.org/ai-advisory-body