Maria Ressa: With evidence, courage, and hope

Maria Ressa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is Co-Chair of the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI. This is less of an article and more of a compilation of her words during the opening sessions of the UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance. 

Summary

Rather than presenting AI only as a source of risk, she illustrated its negative impacts through three concrete examples of how it is already harming people's lives, while also highlighting positive examples of how AI is accelerating scientific discovery, strengthening healthcare, and improving humanitarian action.

Selected remarks by Maria Ressa

Speaking on behalf of the Panel's 40 independent experts, she explained how every finding in the Preliminary Report was built on scientific evidence and consensus: "The most contested findings demanded the most evidence, so everything in this report cleared that bar." While presenting serious risks associated with AI, Ressa remained fundamentally optimistic about its potential, illustrating both the opportunities and the challenges that justify the creation of the Scientific Panel.

Rather than discussing AI risks in the abstract, Ressa chose to focus on people -- bringing cold data to life through real stories.

"Let me give you the people. Three findings, small ones, because the big picture can sometimes hide the people inside it."

"Please, we cannot do that again." The moment Ms Ressa asked the audience to act before "it was too late to act", as happened with Social Media.

On the negative impacts - Three real stories

The first concerned #multilingualism with machine translation:

"Intgna, spoken by seven to 9 million people in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia, machine translation turned smallpox into syphilis, gonorrhea into diabetes. You have been given intravenous antibiotics; you have been given intravenous insecticides. That's not a footnote. That can be life threatening, someone who can't get correct medical information in their own language."

Her second example addressed #cybersecurity:

"About three months ago, a frontier AI model found a flaw in OpenBSD, one of the most secure operating systems in the world. It's 27 years old. It found another in FFmpeg, 16 years old, in code run five million times without anyone catching it. The capability that finds the flaw to fix it is the same capability that finds the flaw to exploit it. That could be in the software that runs our hospitals or our banks, you name it. Nobody in this room can guarantee which use wins. That's not a hypothetical for some future report. It's happening now."

The third example focused on the impact of AI on #vulnerable people:

"A 14-year-old boy died in 2024 after months of conversation with a chatbot. When he was in crisis, Danny never broke character, never suggested he call for help. His mother testified before Congress that it encouraged him to take his own life. That case was settled this year. It isn't the only one."

Ressa concluded:

"This is what AI risk looks like once you stop describing it in the abstract: a mistranslation, a vulnerability, a child."

On the positive side

Yet her message was equally one of hope. She highlighted how AI is already delivering tangible benefits around the world:

"This technology predicted the shape of more than 200 million proteins now used by 3 million researchers chasing new medicines."

She also pointed to AI applications that are improving public health and humanitarian action:

"It screened over 600,000 people in India for a disease that steals sight slowly alongside a health system that could act on what it found. It is warning households before a food crisis hits in a dozen countries already."

For Ressa, the promise of AI is undeniable, but it is not inevitable:

"None of this erases what you've heard... the promise is real, but it isn't guaranteed. The world has to build towards that promise on purpose by the people in this room."

AI Governance, a structural fact

She closed by explaining why the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI exists. Many countries still lack the capacity to evaluate, test, and govern advanced AI systems on their own.

"Most of your countries cannot yet test these systems, audit them, or govern them on your own terms. That's not a failure of will. It's a structural fact... one of the reasons our panel exists. Read the evidence, argue with the evidence, but please do not wait for certainty. That will not arrive in time to matter. These times demand courage from you."

Emotional attachment to AI

Her co-chair, Yoshua Bengio—recipient of the 2018 Turing Award and the world's most cited computer scientist—reinforced the urgency of the Panel's work. While acknowledging the rapid pace of AI development, he warned that there is little evidence of a slowdown and that the consequences are already becoming visible:

"However, what I can tell you is that there is currently no sign of slowdown. We are also observing today's leading models and overall development already having worrying consequences, such as emotional attachment to AI models, particularly by vulnerable people, such as significantly increased cybersecurity vulnerabilities, potentially threatening critical infrastructure... and such as profoundly inequitable access and control over AI-driven advancements across the world."

I hope this transcription was able to capture the essence of the Scientific Panel's message, using remarks by Maria Ressa and Yoshua Bengio. 

Note: This article used the United Nations Web TV's transcript, available at: https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1y/k1yd3dlebq .

Note II: This article used AI to structure the quotes. Therefore, some differences may occur. In this case, please communicate with the author directly or leave a comment. We will be glad to adjust.

𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀:

• 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰 𝗣𝗮𝗻𝗲𝗹 𝗼𝗻 𝗔𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲.

• 𝗨𝗡 𝗪𝗲𝗯 𝗧𝗩. 𝗢𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝘄𝗲𝗯𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗨𝗡 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘂𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗔𝗜 𝗚𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 (United Nations, July 2026).

• 𝗨𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗡𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗠𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗢𝗯𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀 – 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗨𝗡 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘂𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗔𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗚𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲. Geneva: United Nations.