Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis participated in the event organized by the Korean Presidency of the UN Security Council on “Artificial Intelligence and International Peace and Security,” held in the context of the High-Level Week of the 80th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York.
The Prime Minister’s speech follows:
Your Excellency, Mr. Secretary General,
Your Excellency, Mr. President,
Dear colleagues,
I wish to begin by congratulating the Republic of Korea for convening this important meeting of the Security Council on “Artificial Intelligence and International Peace and Security.”
Today’s debate builds on the Arria-formula meeting that Greece co-organized last April with France, with the Republic of Korea, offering us the opportunity to further reflect on a topic that will undoubtedly shape our discussions for years to come. There is now, I think, a broad consensus on the close interplay between artificial intelligence and the maintenance of international peace and security.
The two REAIM Summits -in The Hague in 2023, in Seoul in 2024-, the Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy launched by the United States, and the AI Action Summit in Paris earlier this year have all contributed to developing norms, rules, and guidelines for the responsible development, deployment, and use of AI, including, of course, in the very sensitive military domain.
AI is not just another tool. It’s a general purpose capability with the potential to both empower and destabilise. In the right hands, it can strengthen peacekeeping. It can improve early warning systems. It can accelerate humanitarian relief, just to offer a few examples. In the wrong hands, it can fuel disinformation. It can amplify cyber attacks. It can certainly lower the threshold for escalation and conflict.
AI is by nature a dual-use technology, and it means that our collective security increasingly depends on the choices we make.
Mr. President, our discussion today is particularly timely as it comes just weeks after the release of the Secretary General’s first report on “Artificial Intelligence in the military domain and its implications for international peace and security”. This was, I think, a milestone in our collective effort to address the profound implications of AI on peace and security.
Building on this crucial momentum, we must recognise a fundamental truth, that for our rules-based international order to remain relevant, it must adapt. Just as past generations built new institutions to govern nuclear energy, but also nuclear weapons, and arms control, so too we must now develop new mechanisms to ensure that AI innovation reinforces not just peace of security, but also human dignity. And this, of course, requires international cooperation, transparency, and renewed commitment to the principles of the UN Charter.
At the same time, we must be candid. Preserving peace does not mean ignoring the realities of power. Malign actors are racing ahead in developing AI capabilities. And if we are to protect our citizens, uphold deterrence, and maintain stability, we, too, must responsibly invest in defence and security applications of AI, but always in line with international law and always with a commitment to human oversight. This is not a call for a new arms race, but a recognition that peace is hard to win, it’s harder to safeguard and hardest of all to preserve.
Ladies and gentlemen, we stand at an inflection point. The choices we make on artificial intelligence will not only redefine the balance of power, but also determine whether technology becomes a force for human progress οr a drive of human peril. The Security Council itself must rise to the occasion, just as it once rose to meet the challenges of nuclear weapons, the challenges of peacekeeping. So, tοo, now it must rise to govern the age of AI.
Greece believes the United Nations carries a historic responsibility to charter a path where innovation strengthens peace, where responsibility tempers power, and where technology serves humanity’s highest aspirations. Let’s make sure that artificial intelligence becomes not a source of rivalry and division, but a cornerstone of a more secure, more just, and more peaceful world. Thank you.
