Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva seeks to lead push for global AI rules

As the planet’s largest economies struggle to forge consensus on the future of Artificial Intelligence, Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wants to ensure the developing world isn’t left out of the debate.

The Brazilian leader has added AI to his list of priorities for his country’s Presidency of the Group of 20 nations this year, seizing on the position to try to shape regulatory discussions that are raging from Europe to Asia to the United Nations, where the technology is expected to be a major theme of this week’s General Assembly.

Already seeking reforms to global institutions like the UN Security Council, Lula wants to use November’s G20 leaders summit to craft a governance framework that includes the interests of Global South nations and forces AI superpowers China and the United States to the table, according to two people familiar with his views.

“The big challenge is reducing inequalities — because there is already inequality today,” Luciana Santos, Brazil’s minister of science and technology, said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “We want to reduce this within countries and to do this we need to encourage the development of AI, especially for countries in the Global South.”

Doing so won’t be easy, and not just because Lula will have to convince nations battling for position in the technological arms race that Brazil, whose AI capabilities and regulations lag those of other G20 members, is the right country to lead the conversation.

The G20 is also in the midst of an identity crisis as two major wars and fierce economic competition divide its most powerful members. Reaching consensus on any topic, much less one as complex as AI, has proved increasingly difficult in that climate, as Lula’s efforts to craft a global tax on billionaires has already demonstrated. 

And even if it does succeed in developing a framework, Brazil will have to convince nations to adhere to the guidelines to prevent it from becoming just another G20 resolution with little real-world force.

No matter the challenges, Lula has embraced the issue as part of a career-long campaign to position himself as a leader of the Global South, one who can use Brazil’s relative power to give developing nations a voice on major issues.

His priority is an agreement on baseline standards of governance that give a wide range of countries a say in who gains access to AI and its benefits. Advisers cite his desire to avoid a repeat of the global divide in nuclear technology, in which a handful of nations have an outsize advantage over those that lack access to such weapons. 

Brazil is also pressing members to mitigate potential workforce disruptions from AI, create ways to safeguard intellectual property, and address the military use of artificial intelligence as it begins to appear on battlefields in Ukraine and the Middle East, according to one of the people familiar with his views.

US, China Dominance

Lula is answering calls from UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who has repeatedly stressed that new AI rules shouldn’t be developed solely by rich nations.

So far, they largely have been. China has implemented strict guidelines on the technology, while the European Union approved a comprehensive rulebook that bans AI use in some cases and restricts other applications considered “high-risk.” (US President Joe Biden has called for strong AI regulations, but the US has yet to produce them.)

China and the US, meanwhile, have largely monopolised AI initiatives at the UN, with each successfully pitching their own General Assembly resolutions on the issue this year. 

“To truly harness AI’s potential, we need international cooperation – and solidarity,” Guterres said this month in China. “The risks posed by AI are equally uneven. Without adequate guardrails, AI could further exacerbate inequalities and digital divides and disproportionately affect the most vulnerable.”

Global standards have remained elusive in large part because regulators in different markets disagree over whether to focus on futuristic doomsday risks or more near-term issues around bias. Countries also have varying priorities: Some are clearly more focused on boosting business domestically by attracting AI firms and data centers, with regulation taking a back seat.

Despite the steep challenges ahead, Brazilian officials say they have seen progress in G20 talks. Earlier this month, a G20 working group approved guidelines that highlight the need for international collaboration in order to help developing countries build infrastructure and develop AI systems. World leaders also adopted a pact that includes vows to bolster international governance of AI on Sunday, ahead of the General Assembly.

At home, Brazil is “in a good position” to craft domestic regulations for AI that provide alternatives to the strategies richer nations have adopted, said Bruna Santos, the head of the Brazil Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington.

Still, she sees it as unlikely that Lula will succeed in finding consensus on such a difficult issue at the global level.

“The G20 is an important space for this debate, but it’s not a place where people come together to advance a resolutive agenda,” she said. “It’s nice to raise this flag, but it’s just a political movement.”