Indian professor among 40 experts on new UN AI panel

The General Assembly appointed 40 members recommended by the Secretary-General to the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence (AI) on 12 February.

"Today marks a foundational step towards global scientific understanding of AI. The 40 members of the new Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence, established within the United Nations, have been appointed by the General Assembly of the United Nations for a three-year term. They will serve in their personal capacity," UN Secretary-General António Guterres said as he unveiled the Panel.

First global scientific body dedicated to AI

Established by General Assembly resolution in 2025, the Panel is the first global scientific body of its kind, and aims to bring experts together to assess how the technology is transforming the world and its people. It will issue an annual report containing evidence-based scientific assessments that synthesize and analyse existing research related to the technology's opportunities, risks and impacts.

The Panel includes experts from all regions and disciplines, picked from a pool of more than 2,600 candidates after independent review by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 

The Panel’s work will help Member States have policy-relevant, evidence-based scientific assessments, guided by principles of independence, scientific credibility and rigour, multidisciplinarity and inclusive participation. 

The members have backgrounds in core technical AI expertise; applied AI, safety and infrastructure experience; and AI policy, ethics and impact. 
Among those appointed is Indian AI expert Professor Balaraman Ravindran, the founding head of the Centre for Responsible AI (CeRAI) at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.

 

Here's the full list of the Panel members: 

1. Girmaw Abebe Tadesse (Ethiopia)
2. Tuka Alhanai (United Arab Emirates)
3. Joëlle Barral (France)
4. Yoshua Bengio (Canada)
5. Tegawendé Bissyandé (Burkina Faso)
6. Loreto Bravo (Chile)
7. Mark Coeckelbergh (Belgium)
8. Carlos Coello Coello (Mexico)
9. Melahat Bilge Demirköz (Türkiye)
10. Adji Bousso Dieng (Senegal)
11. Awa Bousso Dramé (Cabo Verde)
12. Mennatallah El-Assady (Egypt)
13. Hoda Heidari (Islamic Republic of Iran)
14. Juho Kim (Republic of Korea)
15. Anna Korhonen (Finland)
16. Aleksandra Korolova (Latvia)
17. Vipin Kumar (United States of America)
18. Sonia Livingstone (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland)
19. Qinghua Lu (Australia)
20. Teresa Ludermir (Brazil)
21. Vukosi Marivate (South Africa)
22. Bilal Mateen (Pakistan)
23. Yutaka Matsuo (Japan)
24. Joyce Nakatumba Nabende (Uganda)
25. Andrei Neznamov (Russian Federation)
26. Maximilian Nickel (Germany)
27. Rita Orji (Nigeria)
28. Román Orús (Spain)
29. Alvitta Ottley (Saint Kitts and Nevis)
30. Martha Palmer (United States of America)
31. Johanna Pirker (Austria)
32. Balaraman Ravindran (India)
33. Maria Ressa (Philippines)
34. Lior Rokach (Israel)
35. Piotr Sankowski (Poland)
36. Silvio Savarese (Italy)
37. Bernhard Schölkopf (Germany)
38. Haitao Song (China)
39. Leslie Teo (Singapore)
40. Jian Wang (China)
    
    Click here to learn more about the panel