The transcripts are AI-generated from the UN's English audio and can contain mistakes. We are checking them against the statements the missions publish; some errors are still expected.
Procedural · at 1 min
Mr. President, I am honored to extend to you and to the distinguished representatives of the nations assembled here the warm greetings of His Holiness Pope Leo the 14th, while also congratulating Your Excellency on your election as president of this esteemed Assembly. As the Secretary General, his Excellency Antonio Guterres approaches the end of his term of office, I wish also to thank him for his service to the United Nations and wish him well.
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Peace and security · at 1 min
Mr. President, last year from this very podium, Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni recalled that 56 armed conflicts were raging across the world, the highest number since World War II. Today, those same sources put that figure at 61. It's the stark truth of the numbers. Pope Leo XIV issued a warning that Italy has made its own: we must never grow accustomed to war, because first we'll become accustomed to the words, then to images, and finally to the victims. When war becomes something we grow accustomed to, peace itself risks becoming a mirage. We will not give up. Against the law of the strongest, we choose the strength of the law; against the politics of force, we choose the force of politics. This is the message Italy brings today to the United Nations. This is the mission of Italian diplomacy: to build bridges, open new paths, and keep dialogue alive even when it seems impossible. To work for peace, prosperity, and growth, because growth creates prosperity, and prosperity in turn consolidates peace. Ukraine, the Middle East, the Gulf, Sudan, and the Sahel are not separate crises, nor are trade wars, AI competition, hybrid attacks, and their economic and social repercussions, nor is terrorism in all of its many forms, which we continue to fight in every corner of the world.
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Access to our minerals will be contingent upon mandatory value generation in our territory, technology transfer and the supply of strategic national sectors. Mr. president, we are living through unprecedented technological revolution with great risks and opportunities. It would be an unforgivable historical omission not to address the challenge of regulating the big techs and artificial intelligence. A handful of techno-oligarchs want to resurrect a version of digital ultra liberalism without rules or transparency. They are promoting a race with no ethical boundaries, bypassing the United Nations and the Scientific panel on Artificial Intelligence. As Pope Leo warned, decisions about technology should, quote, should never be separated from awareness and responsibility. End of quote. Companies that are aware of the risks of their products are transferring the impossible task of confronting algorithms to the families. The billion dollar betting industry turns addiction into profit. Its exponential dissemination is increasing debt levels and destroying homes. Brazil will not tolerate this business model. We passed one of the most advanced pieces of legislation in the world to protect children, adolescents and women in the digital environment. We will ensure fair compensation for artists, musicians and audiovisual content creators. We will not give in to pressure from multinationals that want to privatize our PIX, a free public payment infrastructure that has made financial inclusion a reality for millions of Brazilians. Ladies and gentlemen, the Sustainable Development Goals are currently under attack from reactionary forces that wish to normalize injustices.
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This assembly also calls on us to manage transformation. No one here needs me to tell them what the great transformation of our age is. Every great era in human history has had its driving force. Steam powered the Industrial Revolution. The transistor powered the digital age. No force in our time is as profound as artificial intelligence. We can already see its power in warfare, in the economy, and in our everyday lives. Unlike tools that merely transmitted what we said, these systems are part and parcel of the decisions that we make. The potential is immense. Paraguay today feeds 100 million people. And with this tool, it could feed 1 billion. It could enable us to cover, in years, distances that once took generations. This transformation cannot be held back. And no one should be left out of it. However, we're not blind to the risks. But we cannot allow fear to guide us. Like a child, artificial intelligence repeats what it has learned from those who trained it. If it has learned to deny freedom, then that lesson will not arrive in the form of a law that we can debate. It will arrive covert, in some minor task, in some action that no one regards as a decision. Democracy endures, provided that the decisions that govern us can be traced back to the will of those who must live with their consequences. When that thread is severed, the will of the people risks being replaced without ever having been defeated. Protecting that delicate thread doesn't mean forgoing the benefits. It means refusing to ignore the risk that truly matters. Artificial intelligence must serve human dignity and not replace it. As His Holiness the Pope reminds us in the recent encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, the values embedded in these systems are not a technical constraint. They are a choice made by those who trained them. The future demands that the choice be freedom, democracy, and equality before the law, and that those who make that choice be held accountable for it. It may seem that, so far, I have only talked about an endless series of problems and challenges.
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Globy