The United Nations fears its voice is being diminished and largely ignored by a growing number of independent, multi-national companies and they need to be brought back under “control.”
The U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk told AFP in an interview of his concerns for the success of global companies and the seeming unbridled power of a small number of technology outfits.
He pointed to how seven or eight big tech companies now boast more wealth than the entire economies of even industrialised nations:
They have amassed an immense amount of power.
And power, we all know, if it is not circumscribed by rule of law, by international rights law, can lead to abuse.
It can lead to an exercise of powers to subjugate others.
Turk said he was deeply “worried that corporate power, if it’s not constrained by the law and by international rights standards, is going to be a huge issue for us.”
“It’s an area where I think we as the human rights community will have to focus much more.”
His fears echoed those of U.N. chief Antonio Guterres who has previously lashed out at a global events and expressed frustration at the lack of input the Geneva-based organization has on the world stage.
Unelected career bureaucrat Turk spoke just days after Tesla shareholders endorsed a pay package that could reach $1 trillion for its chief executive Elon Musk — already the world’s richest person and owner of social media platform X.
Tesla and SpaceX billionaire Musk has never been shy of voicing his opinions on a variety of matters while challenging the left.
Turk also pointed to the growing use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) as being another form of power that falls outside the U.N.s remit and cautioned it must be brought to heel.
“Generative AI can have huge potential to resolve some of the biggest problems that we face, but we also can see the shadow side,” Turk said.
Turk despaired, “AI that is unregulated can be a huge source of distraction, which then takes away the political energy that we need in order to actually fight autocratic tendencies, to push back on lack of control.”
Read the full AFP interview here
