Speech by the President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, at the High-Level Dialogue 'Protecting Children's Rights facing artificial intelligence: the Coalition for children's rights and protection in the age of Artificial intelligence as an Operational Tool'

SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF SPAIN, PEDRO SÁNCHEZ

Good afternoon,

It is a pleasure to open this session alongside my dear colleagues Anthony and Emmanuel.

Well, I think the risks associated with Artificial Intelligence have been on our minds for decades.

In 2001, in A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick introduced us to HAL, a computer created to assist human beings.

Until one day, that computer refuses to obey and says, word for word, 'I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.'

Now, before AI becomes more powerful than our ability to control it, I believe it is up to us to respond: 'I'm sorry, AI. I'm afraid we can't let you do that.'

Not without limits. Not without rules. Not without protecting what makes us human.

For years, Artificial Intelligence has raised high hopes, and here, it is certainly a topic of debate. It would help to cure diseases, improve education, speed up discoveries and build more prosperous societies. Some of the techno-oligarchs claim that we are on the cusp of an era of superabundance.

But today we can also see the enormous risks involved.

A small group of techno-oligarchs holds a concentration of power and wealth, and shapes both values and preferences.

And the technology they are developing exacerbates problems relating to cyberbullying, hate, sexual offences, the loss of privacy, anxiety and loneliness.

And these warnings no longer come solely from critical reports. They also come from those who develop the most advanced artificial intelligence systems themselves. And if they themselves are warning us of these risks, then I believe we all have a duty to respond and to take notice.

Above all, when those risks affect those who have the fewest means of defending themselves. As the president of the French Republic has said, our children and teenagers.

Allow me to share some figures to put into perspective the scale of the challenge we are trying to tackle.

European children spend up to six hours - I repeat, six hours - a day in front of a screen.

One in three teenagers admits to regularly coming across inappropriate content, to be politically correct.

At the same time, the latest PISA report from the OECD, as Emmanuel mentioned earlier, notes a general decline in educational attainment, partly due to the use of artificial intelligence.

And there is an even more serious piece of data, which, for me at least, sent a shiver down my spine when I learnt of it. The fact is that child sexual abuse material generated using artificial intelligence has risen from around 5,000 cases detected in 2023, bear this figure in mind: 5,000 cases detected in 2023, to 1.3 million - I repeat, 1.3 million - in 2025.

A digital world without rules is not a playground; it is a lawless jungle, a failed state.

Here in Spain, of course, we have - as have many of the governments represented here - placed the protection of children at the heart of our digital agenda.

We have co-led the establishment of this very forum, the United Nations Coalition for Children's Rights and Protection in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

Furthermore, this Coalition is one of the first tangible outcomes of the dialogue on the governance of artificial intelligence that we adopted just last year at the United Nations General Assembly, when we launched the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence.

Taking some inspiration from the examples of France and Australia, we have introduced a bill to set the minimum age for accessing social media at 16 and to establish parental controls that are enabled by default.

And thank you also, Madam President, to the European Commission for its leadership; thanks to this, we have succeeded in ensuring that the European Union has included in the Artificial Intelligence Act a ban on non-consensual sexual deepfakes and on child sexual abuse material generated by artificial intelligence.

And, in the case of Spain, we have been one of the first countries to develop an effective age verification system based on the European Digital Identity Card. And here we have some of the key contributors to this idea.

Well, I'll wrap up briefly by saying something very simple to the techno-oligarchs. The fact is, our sons and daughters come before your business. Our sons and daughters come before your business.

Companies must be held accountable for the impact of their activities on children, as many other companies are. They cannot privatise the benefits and socialise the costs, particularly when we are talking about our children's mental health.

I believe it is possible to regain hope in the future of technology. Let's hope we do, let's hope we do. But it requires clear boundaries, accountability and cooperation. And artificial intelligence must work for humanity, never the other way round.

We therefore need a response - national and regional, of course, but also global. A partnership between governments, international organisations, businesses, educators and families.

A year ago, it was unthinkable in Europe to set a minimum age for joining a social media platform or for chatting with a chatbot.

But today, this proposal is on the table thanks to the impetus provided by the European Commission and also by countries such as Spain and France, which are working together with other European nations to drive it forward.

What we are doing now is asking the United Nations to ensure that the progress we have made for our children also inspires a major transformation and significant social progress.

Because technology should serve our young people, and not the other way round.

And we must ensure that the next generation, as Emmanuel rightly said earlier, inherits an artificial intelligence guided by human values and by children's rights, by children's rights.

This is the challenge that confronts us all - nothing more and nothing less.

But I, too, dear Emmanuel, dear Anthony, am very proud to be part of this group and this coalition.

(Transcript edited by the State Secretariat for Communication)