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The dialogue was established as a space where UN member states and stakeholders could discuss AI challenges and opportunities and ensure that its governance reflects the priorities of all countries and benefits everyone.
The submission cosigned by WCC shares perspectives and recommendations aimed to support a shared international framework for AI governance.
The submission highlights priorities for urgent action, including: safe, secure and trustworthy AI; coordination of AI governance approaches; protection and promotion of human rights; transparency, accountability and human oversight; and equitable distribution of AI’s economic benefits.
In identifying these priorities, the submission calls out existing harms, including inadequate safeguards for children, women and other vulnerable populations; bias, job displacement and labor impacts; lack of transparency; information integrity; cultural and linguistic erasure; and environmental harms.
The submission calls for structured engagement from faith communities in the dialogue.
“Religious and faith communities, theologians, and interfaith organizations are also largely absent,” reads the submission. “Their ethical traditions contribute substantively to debates on dignity, community, responsibility, and the ethics of new technologies, and their networks often reach communities formal civil society does not. Structured engagement building on existing UN channels for dialogue with faith-based actors would enable meaningful contribution.”
Moderator of the WCC central committee Bishop Prof. Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm emphasized the importance of adding WCC’s voice in calls for responsible AI governance.
“With this submission, the WCC is in tune with the positions of the collaborating organizations in speaking out about AI governance,” he said. “It is far more than a technological issue—it is one in which fundamental moral, economic, cultural, and societal issues at stake.”