For the first time in history, the world has an independent scientific body dedicated to artificial intelligence. On February 13, 2026, the United Nations General Assembly appointed 40 experts to a three-year panel charged with assessing AI's economic and social impacts—a vote that passed 117-2, with only the United States and Paraguay opposed. The vote marks the clearest split yet between American AI policy and the rest of the world, including traditional US allies in Europe and Asia.
The panel's creation caps a 28-month diplomatic push that began when UN Secretary-General António Guterres convened his first AI advisory body in October 2023. What started as a voluntary advisory group has evolved into a formal institutional architecture: a scientific panel modeled loosely on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), paired with an annual Global Dialogue on AI Governance launching in Geneva in July 2026. The US objection—calling the panel 'a significant overreach'—comes as Washington has withdrawn from multiple international bodies and refused to sign the Paris AI Summit declaration in February 2025.