Dennis Zulu | Governing artificial intelligence: Why Jamaica’s voice matters in a digital age

Artificial intelligence is moving faster than many of our institutions, laws, and public conversations. It is already influencing how people access information, how governments and businesses make decisions, how students learn, and how societies prepare for crises. Whether we are fully ready or not, artificial intelligence is becoming part of everyday life.

That is why the real question is no longer whether artificial intelligence will shape our future. It already is. The real question is who will shape artificial intelligence, under what rules, and in whose interests.

As the world marks World Creativity and Innovation Day on April 21, there is every reason to celebrate human ingenuity and the power of ideas to transform lives. But innovation alone is never enough. Innovation without responsibility can deepen harm as easily as it can unlock progress. Few technologies make this clearer than artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence is a human creation. It reflects the values, choices, and assumptions of those who design and deploy it. Its benefits are immense and still unfolding. Used well, it can improve public services, expand access to knowledge, strengthen institutions, and accelerate sustainable development. Left unguided, however, it can reinforce inequality, erode trust, concentrate power, and exclude those who are already on the margins.

GOVERNANCE MATTERS

This is why governance matters. The governance of artificial intelligence should not aim to suppress innovation or slow progress for its own sake. Rather, it should create the conditions under which innovation can thrive responsibly. It should protect human dignity, safety, privacy, and fundamental freedoms, while ensuring that technological advancement serves the public good.

For Jamaica and other Small Island Developing States, this is not an abstract or distant debate. It is immediate, practical, and deeply consequential. Technologies designed elsewhere are already shaping our economies, our information ecosystems, and our capacity to respond to climate and development challenges. If global norms and rules are created without the participation of countries like ours, then we risk living with the consequences of decisions we had little role in shaping.

That is precisely why Jamaica’s voice matters.

Global governance of artificial intelligence cannot be left only to the largest economies or to private technology companies. Data moves across borders. Algorithms developed in one part of the world can influence lives and institutions in another. The implications are global, and so too must be the response. No country, however influential, can govern artificial intelligence responsibly on its own.

This is where the United Nations has a unique and indispensable role. The United Nations was created to help countries confront challenges that transcend borders and require collective solutions. Artificial intelligence is one of those challenges. Its governance must be rooted in multilateralism, inclusion, and shared responsibility.

In 2024, member states adopted the Global Digital Compact, an important milestone in digital cooperation. Significantly, it included a dedicated focus on artificial intelligence. Its message was unmistakable: artificial intelligence holds enormous promise for advancing the Sustainable Development Goals, but it also carries serious risks, and those risks should not be faced by any one country alone.

For Jamaica, this is not merely about global diplomacy. It is about development policy in the most practical sense. Artificial intelligence can improve early warning systems for hurricanes and floods. It can help farmers better respond to changing climate conditions. It can strengthen health services, including in under served communities. It can support more personalised and effective learning. For a country working to build resilience, expand opportunity, and accelerate development, these are transformative possibilities.

HONESTY

But optimism must be matched by honesty.

Artificial intelligence systems built on biased data can entrench discrimination. Weak governance can expose people to surveillance, misinformation, and exploitation. Deepfakes and synthetic media can undermine trust, distort democratic discourse, and weaken social cohesion. Countries with limited regulatory capacity are often the most vulnerable to these harms, even as they have the most to gain from the positive uses of technology.

That is why collective action is essential. The United Nations has advanced an approach to artificial intelligence governance built around three pillars: policy, science, and capacity. Policy ensures that artificial intelligence is anchored in human rights, ethics, and accountability. Science provides credible, independent evidence on both opportunities and risks. Capacity helps countries build the skills, institutions, and digital infrastructure needed not just to consume artificial intelligence, but to shape how it is governed and applied.

New global mechanisms are beginning to take shape. The Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence is expected to provide evidence-based assessments to support decision-making. The Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance will offer a multilateral platform for Member States and other stakeholders to engage on how artificial intelligence should be governed in ways that are innovative, responsible, and grounded in human rights and the public interest.

Jamaica and other Small Island Developing States must be part of these conversations not as bystanders, but as contributors.

This is equally true at the national level. UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence has already provided an important framework for action, grounded in human dignity, fairness, transparency, and human oversight. In Jamaica, an artificial intelligence readiness assessment has helped identify strengths as well as gaps. Such efforts matter because good governance does not begin only when a global agreement is signed. It begins with national preparedness, public awareness, institutional capacity, and inclusive dialogue.

There is also an important misconception that needs to be challenged: governance is not the enemy of innovation. Good governance is what makes innovation sustainable. Trust drives adoption. Ethics enable scale. Clear and fair rules create the confidence needed for innovation to benefit society broadly, rather than a narrow few.

This is especially important for young people. Across Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, there is tremendous creativity, talent, and entrepreneurial energy. The future of artificial intelligence should not be written only in a handful of global capitals or corporate headquarters. It must also be shaped in our schools, our universities, our start-ups, and our communities.

The choices being made now will have lasting consequences. We can allow artificial intelligence to widen existing divides, or we can govern it in ways that expand opportunity and inclusion. We can be passive recipients of a technology shaped elsewhere, or active participants in defining how it serves humanity.

Jamaica should choose to participate, to lead where it can, and to insist that the voices of small island developing states are heard.

In the digital age, even the smallest states have both the right and the responsibility to help shape the rules that will define our common future. Artificial intelligence must be governed with humanity at its centre.

Dennis Zulu is the United Nations resident coordinator in Jamaica, The Bahamas, Bermuda, The Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com