The United Nations Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence published a report in July 2026 with a conclusion that should alarm governments everywhere — including Pakistan’s: the world’s ability to govern AI is falling further and further behind the pace at which AI is being developed and deployed.
Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and co-chair of the panel, put it bluntly: “The technology is transformative, but if the world keeps moving along this trajectory, humanity will fail to realize the gains it promises.” The panel, which includes leading AI researchers, ethicists, and policymakers from more than 40 countries, said that time is “running out” to establish effective worldwide governance of AI before its risks become irreversible.
For Pakistan — which has committed $1 billion to AI by 2030, trained 7,000 developers through the AI Seekho programme, and positioned AI at the centre of its digital economy strategy — the UN warning arrives at a pointed moment. Pakistan has an AI ambition. It does not yet have an AI safety framework.
What the UN Report Actually Found
The UN panel’s report is not a technology pessimism document. It acknowledges AI’s enormous potential — in healthcare diagnostics, climate modelling, agricultural productivity, and education. The concern is not that AI is dangerous in itself, but that the governance infrastructure to manage its risks has not kept pace with its capabilities.
The specific risks the panel identified fall into several categories:
- Disinformation and synthetic media: AI-generated images, audio, and video can now convincingly imitate real people. The cost of producing political disinformation at scale has collapsed. Democratic processes and public trust in media are under structural threat.
- Labour displacement: Automation of cognitive tasks — writing, coding, data analysis, customer service — is happening faster than workforce retraining systems can respond. The countries most at risk are those where large numbers of workers perform routine digital tasks.
- Autonomous weapons: AI is being integrated into weapons systems without clear international law governing autonomous lethal decision-making. No equivalent of the Geneva Conventions exists for AI weapons yet.
- Surveillance and social control: AI-powered surveillance systems — facial recognition, behavioural prediction, social scoring — are being deployed by governments globally. The panel flagged particular concern about deployment in countries with weak rule of law and civil liberty protections.
- Concentration of power: AI capabilities are concentrating in a small number of companies and countries. The UN panel warned that this concentration creates “winner-take-all” dynamics that could permanently widen global inequality.
The Global AI Governance Gap: 2026 Status
| Jurisdiction | AI Governance Framework | Status | Key Provisions |
|---|---|---|---|
| European Union | EU AI Act | In force (2025) | Risk-based classification; bans on social scoring and real-time biometric surveillance in public spaces |
| United States | AI Executive Orders + State laws | Fragmented | NIST AI Risk Management Framework; no federal AI law as of mid-2026 |
| China | Multiple regulations | Partially in force | Generative AI rules, algorithm recommendation rules, deepfake regulations |
| United Kingdom | Sector-specific guidance | Advisory only | No dedicated AI law; AI Safety Institute operational |
| India | Draft AI policy | Under development | Consultation stage; no law passed |
| Pakistan | No AI-specific framework | Not started | $1B AI investment plan; no safety law, no regulatory body |
| UAE | National AI Strategy | Active | Minister of State for AI; AI governance council; voluntary guidelines |
The table illustrates the global picture clearly. Even the EU — the world’s most advanced AI regulatory jurisdiction — only brought its AI Act into force in 2025. The US has no comprehensive federal AI law. And Pakistan, despite an ambitious national AI investment strategy, has no AI safety framework at all.
How Fast Is AI Developing? The Scale of the Problem
To understand why the UN panel says governance is losing the race, consider the pace of development. In 2026 alone, analysts tracking the AI industry have counted more than 324 new AI model releases from major labs and companies worldwide. Each release introduces new capabilities — and new risks that existing regulatory frameworks were not designed to address.
Reasoning models — AI systems that can break complex problems into steps and work through them — have moved from laboratory demonstrations to commercial availability in under two years. Multimodal AI, which combines text, image, audio, and video understanding, has become standard across frontier AI systems. Agentic AI — systems that can take actions in the world, browse the internet, write code, and execute tasks without human approval at each step — is moving from early tests to enterprise deployment.
Each of these capability jumps creates new governance questions that existing law is not equipped to answer. Who is liable when an AI agent makes a mistake that causes harm? How do you audit a model that generates responses through processes its own creators cannot fully explain? How do you prevent a government from using a facial recognition system to identify and target political dissidents?
These are not hypothetical questions. They are happening now, in countries across the world, without answers.
Why Pakistan Is Particularly Exposed
Pakistan’s AI exposure has several specific dimensions that make the UN warning directly relevant to Pakistani policymakers and citizens.
Disinformation risk: Pakistan’s political environment is already characterised by high levels of disinformation on social media. AI-generated deepfakes of political leaders, AI-written propaganda at scale, and synthetic audio of public figures saying things they never said are tools that are cheap to produce and difficult to counter. Without legal frameworks specifically addressing AI-generated disinformation, Pakistan’s political discourse is vulnerable.
Labour displacement without safety net: Many of the jobs that Pakistan’s growing freelance workforce performs — data entry, basic coding, content writing, customer support — are precisely the tasks that AI automation is targeting. The $1.6 billion freelance economy that Pakistani workers have built could face significant disruption if AI tools reduce the market price of these services faster than Pakistani workers can move up the value chain.
Surveillance technology adoption: Law enforcement agencies in Pakistan have shown interest in adopting facial recognition and predictive surveillance tools. Without a legal framework governing when and how such tools can be used, Pakistan’s citizens have no guaranteed protection against misuse. The UN panel specifically identified surveillance technology without legal guardrails as one of the highest-priority risks globally.
AI investment without safety alignment: Pakistan is committing public money to building AI infrastructure and training AI workers. If those investments are made without embedding safety practices from the beginning, fixing problems later becomes exponentially more expensive — both financially and in terms of public trust.
What Pakistan Should Do: A Framework Agenda
Pakistan does not need to build the EU AI Act overnight. But it does need to begin. A practical starting point would include three elements:
1. A National AI Safety Council: A cross-ministry body — including the Ministry of IT, SECP, FBR, and security services — that reviews AI deployment in critical sectors (finance, healthcare, law enforcement) and sets minimum safety standards. The UAE’s model of a Minister of State for AI with genuine cross-government authority is a relevant template.
2. Deepfake and AI Disinformation Legislation: Specific criminal penalties for the creation and distribution of AI-generated content designed to deceive — including synthetic political media, non-consensual intimate imagery, and fraudulent voice cloning. This is narrow enough to be legislated quickly and urgent enough to need it.
3. AI Skills with Ethics Built In: Government AI training programmes — including the AI Seekho initiative and any future programmes — should include modules on AI ethics, bias recognition, and responsible deployment. The goal should be to produce AI practitioners who understand the limits and risks of the tools they build, not just their capabilities.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Pakistan have any AI laws at all?
As of mid-2026, Pakistan has no dedicated AI legislation or regulatory framework. The closest adjacent regulations are the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA 2016), which covers some digital offences including non-consensual image sharing, and the Virtual Assets Act 2026, which governs AI-adjacent crypto applications. Neither was designed with modern AI systems in mind. The Ministry of IT has discussed developing an AI policy, but no draft has been published.
What is the UN’s AI safety panel and who is on it?
The UN Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence was established by the UN Secretary-General as part of the broader UN AI governance initiative. It includes scientists, ethicists, and policymakers from more than 40 countries. Maria Ressa, the Filipino journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, serves as co-chair. The panel’s mandate is to provide independent scientific assessment of AI risks and governance needs to inform international policymaking.
Is AI actually dangerous, or is this alarmism?
The honest answer is: both the risks and the benefits are real, and the problem is that the benefits are arriving faster than the governance infrastructure to manage the risks. AI is demonstrably producing significant medical, scientific, and productivity benefits. It is also demonstrably being used to generate disinformation, conduct surveillance, and displace workers. The UN panel’s concern is not that AI is inherently harmful, but that the absence of governance frameworks means harm is occurring without accountability and will continue to do so at increasing scale.
