The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has highlighted the urgency of reaching a common framework for the regulation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) at a multilateral forum such as the Ibero-American Summit, which begins this Wednesday in Madrid.
Sánchez delivered this message during a conversation prior to the official start of the meeting, in which he took part together with the presidents of Costa Rica, Laura Fernández; the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader; Portugal, Luís Montenegro; and Bolivia, Rodrigo Paz, at the closing of the XVI Ibero-American Business Meeting.
At this meeting, chaired by King Felipe VI and held in the Las Ventas bullring, the head of the Executive has underscored the importance of “middle-sized countries” such as those represented there to drive consensus on the effect of AI on production processes, supply chains, resource management and, in a special way, in the labor market.
Sánchez’s intervention comes on the eve of an Ibero-American Summit in which it is expected to conclude an Ibero-American alliance on artificial intelligence, backed by all the participating States.
At the same time, the member countries aim to put into operation an Ibero-American network for civil protection against natural disasters, with the objective of interconnecting national emergency response systems and enabling a common fund that can be activated in catastrophe situations.
Along these lines, Sánchez has also insisted on the need to strengthen collective action in the face of the climate emergency, which, he has recalled, manifests with particular intensity both in the Iberian Peninsula and across the entire Ibero-American space, currently affected by the El Niño phenomenon.
“The voice of Ibero-America is very necessary,” he said, both within the framework of the United Nations system and in other multilateral settings, in order to reach consensus and confront those states that “ignore international legality” or diminish the relevance of forums such as this summit.
For this reason, he has urged governments to avoid “self-absorption” and to jointly tackle challenges such as the climate crisis, the development of artificial intelligence or the mobility and training of young people, another of the central topics of the meeting, which includes the creation of a network for academic exchange similar to the Erasmus program in the region.