Key facts
- Nobel laureate Maria Ressa warned that AI could take away human agency if not regulated now.
- Ressa serves as co-chair of the UN's international scientific panel on artificial intelligence.
- She described AI's impact in three waves: social media capturing attention, hacking biology via chatbots, and now agency through agentic AI.
- Ressa argued that regulating AI is a public safety issue, not a free speech one.
- She called for tech companies to be made responsible for damages caused by their AI.
- Ressa welcomed EU and Australian moves for age limits on social media but said addictive features should be removed for all users.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa warned that artificial intelligence poses a significant threat to human agency and requires immediate legislative action. Speaking in Oslo, Ressa, who co-chairs the United Nations' international scientific panel on AI, stated that AI has already influenced society through social media and by manipulating human biology via chatbots.
Ressa described three waves of AI's impact: the first being social media platforms that polarized societies, the second hacking human biology through intimacy and chatbots, and the current wave involving agentic AI that can act for humans. She asserted that citizens must campaign for AI regulation, framing it as a public safety issue.
Dismissing arguments that regulating AI would cede ground to China, Ressa noted that China implements more safeguards for its citizens than Silicon Valley does globally, citing TikTok's age restrictions in China. She called for tech companies to be held accountable for damages, welcoming lawsuits against Meta Platforms that resulted in an $18 billion settlement over the next decade concerning teenage use of its platforms.
Ressa also welcomed age limits on social media but argued that addictive features should be removed for all users, as manipulation affects adults too. She proposed the creation of communication platforms independent of Big Tech, similar to public works like parks, citing Rappler Communities as an example of a secure, decentralized platform for real conversations.