The United Nations was not created in order to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell. This sobering quote from former UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld echoed through the halls of the General Assembly this year, a stark reminder of the high stakes at play. As world leaders gathered, the prevailing sentiment was not of lofty idealism, but of an urgent need to avert catastrophe. The annual General Debate at UNGA is the stage where countries outline their strategic priorities, concerns, and proposals. Using advanced AI and human expertise, Diplo conducted an in-depth analysis of close to 200 statements by heads of state and international officials. Our reporting provides an x-ray of the collective diplomatic body, examining 614,214 words that contained 1,281 distinct arguments—including a significant 297 focused on AI and digitalisation. Overall, the sentiment of the General Debate can be distilled into three key words: echo, gloom, and hope. Over the past seven years, our UNGA reporting has evolved from a purely human effort to a sophisticated hybrid model. This year, we struck the right balance by fine-tuning data models, algorithms, and RAG systems. Our experience mirrors the broader AI sentiment we observed: AI excels at generating general text and summaries. However, the more you need precision in capturing nuanced arguments, the more essential the “human-in-the-loop” becomes. We confirmed that while you can have an AI sprint using tools like ChatGPT to generate a summary in five minutes, achieving true precision and usefulness requires the marathon of long-term AI and tool development and deployment. On major issues like Gaza and Ukraine, the debate was characterised by an echo of established national positions. The General Assembly was not used as a platform to signal an opening for new solutions or test subtle nuances in diplomacy. The intensive rhetoric surrounding the conflict in Gaza, for instance, highlighted a gap that seems to be widening, with familiar arguments clashing in a chamber designed for dialogue. A palpable sense of concern, fear, and even desperation underpinned many statements. Leaders expressed a shared anxiety that humanity is sleepwalking into a polycrisis that risks our very survival. The threat of nuclear war was raised as a paramount danger, pushing other critical issues, like climate change, slightly down the global priority list, though not for all. For island nations facing existential threats from rising sea levels, the climate crisis remains the defining gloom, a clear and present danger to their land, people, and sovereignty. Amid the echoes and gloom, one area emerged as a surprising beacon of hope: Artificial intelligence. Unlike other divisive topics, some agreement seems to be forming around the need for the UN to act on AI governance and cooperation. This is reflected in the adoption of a UNGA resolution establishing an AI dialogue and a scientific panel, alongside the Secretary-General’s call for funding AI capacity building. Crucially, the UN has got the approach to AI right. Instead of rushing with knee-jerk reactions over the past few years, as many did, the UN allowed the landscape to mature. The focus has helpfully shifted from long-term, existential risks to more immediate concerns in education, jobs, and societal impact, paving the way for practical, cooperative governance. Diplo’s linguistic analysis, which identifies typical metaphors and linguistic tools used in UNGA statements, offers a valuable resource for speech writers. As we’ve seen an increased reliance on AI for drafting statements, we advise adopting a hybrid approach: start with human input, use AI to generate drafts, but ensure the final say belongs to a human. This will help preserve the diversity and human-centred approach critical to global diplomacy and, perhaps, save the jobs of speech writers.
About Diplo’s reporting: A hybrid approach
Echo: More of the same
Gloom: Sleepwalking into catastrophes
Hope: A cautious consensus on AI
A note for speech writers
