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The next global crisis may be driven by a virus, climate change, or even Artificial Intelligence. But can existing institutions still bring countries together to respond? What is the future of multilateralism in an increasingly fragmented world? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Professor Tshilidzi Marwala, Rector of the United Nations University and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.
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00:10Hello and good evening. I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to Consider This.
00:14This is the show where we want you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of
00:18the day.
00:18This week, policymakers, researchers and global health experts have gathered in Kuala Lumpur
00:24to discuss the future of global health security.
00:27Now the meeting comes at a time where countries are confronting not only the threats of future pandemics
00:33but also questions around technology in healthcare and international cooperation
00:38which is why I am very delighted to introduce my guest on the show today
00:42who is one of the keynote speakers at the event, Professor Chilisi Marwala
00:46who is the Rector of the United Nations University and Undersecretary General of the United Nations.
00:54Thank you so much for being on the show. Welcome.
00:55No, thank you very much. I'm very, very happy to be here and I greet you all and your listeners.
01:03Wonderful. If I may just very quickly establish for our listeners today the United Nations University.
01:09So it is headquartered in Tokyo.
01:12Yes.
01:13Is that right?
01:13And it functions as a think tank for the United Nations?
01:17It does both. It does think tank and it does education.
01:20We have 13 institutes that are located in 12 different countries.
01:25We have 10 hubs that are located in 8 different countries.
01:32So we are in more than 21 countries.
01:36Truly global.
01:37We are also here in Malaysia.
01:38Oh, fantastic.
01:39We have United Nations University Institute of Global Health and that is why we are here.
01:47And I arrived yesterday, I met the Minister of Health because our institute here focuses on health.
01:55I also met the Minister of Higher Education because we are also a higher education institution.
02:03So you've met all the relevant stakeholders.
02:05Now, talk to me about your keynote at the event, which I found quite an interesting topic.
02:12Multilateralism, the future of multilateralism in global health security.
02:16Can I ask you why this is an issue that we should pay attention to today?
02:22Well, I think we should go back to 2019, COVID-19.
02:27Pandemics know no bottom.
02:31So which means that for us to be able to effectively deal with commutable diseases, especially pandemics, we have to
02:40do it at an international level.
02:43Countries must come together, agree on the norms that are going to govern vital issues such as data sharing, vital
02:52issues such as solutions.
02:56And of course, for COVID-19, we had to deal with issues of vaccines.
03:01And these vaccines were manufactured in very limited countries.
03:07And therefore, the idea of sharing becomes quite important.
03:10And of course, we realize, especially from COVID-19,
03:15that a problem in one part of the world becomes a problem for us all.
03:20And therefore, there is no single nation that can be able to deal with issues of global health on its
03:28own.
03:29And therefore, multilateralism, with all the difficulties that it faces currently, must be revitalized.
03:37When you say revitalized, is it backsliding today?
03:43Has it dimmed in the past few years?
03:46Well, I think we are facing a very important challenge.
03:54We know that in some of our organizations, there are some nations that have withdrawn from our organizations.
04:02And we are saying that that is not good for multilateralism.
04:06We know that we live at a time when interstate conflicts have heightened.
04:15Interstate conflicts is a good indicator of multilateralism.
04:19Because when countries fight, multilateralism is the mechanism in which we are supposed to bring them together.
04:25Right.
04:26So that they can coexist and work together to deal with issues that require all our attention.
04:31Issues of climate change.
04:33Issues of rapid technological development.
04:35That requires all of us to work together.
04:37So, yes, it is experiencing some form of challenges.
04:43But it's also an opportunity for us to reset and be able to recreate multilateralism that is fit for our
04:55time.
04:56Because times have changed.
04:59I want to come back to that, if I may, Professor.
05:02I think it's quite interesting.
05:04So, multilateralism that's fit for today.
05:08But if I may just very quickly go on another tangent.
05:12You mentioned something interesting in your answer a bit earlier.
05:16You talked about, you brought up the COVID-19 experience.
05:21The experience of the world going through a global pandemic.
05:23But you also talked about data sharing.
05:26And I'm quite curious because 2026 is not the same as 2020.
05:32This is the age of AI.
05:34And I'm curious to know what global health security looks like in the age of AI.
05:40Well, I mean, I think we are less secure because we have technology that is not a difficult technology, I
05:48have to add.
05:49AI?
05:49AI is not a difficult technology.
05:51It's an easy technology to replicate.
05:54It's not to the scale of nuclear technology, for example.
05:59That is still a very hard science even up to today.
06:03I think what is the limiting factor, and I say this because I do have a PhD in AI, the
06:12limiting factor is computation.
06:14What is hard is the semiconductor manufacturing processes and so on and so forth, you know.
06:20That obviously is needed to do some of the large computing requirements that we need in order to build applications
06:32such as large language models, you know.
06:34So we live at a time when AI is changing everything around us.
06:42But AI is about data.
06:45Without data, AI does not exist.
06:50And some of this data you have to go and measure.
06:54For languages, you don't have to measure the languages, you know, because we speak the language.
07:00We write this language in some text.
07:04So what normally happens is that we go to the database and extract this language and build this large language
07:14models.
07:14But for many physical AI, the AI that will be able to monitor our environment, it requires specialized devices to
07:26take the measurements.
07:28It requires specialized channels in which we can communicate these measurements to data centers so that we can be able
07:37to build AI models that will help us understand a cross-border issue called climate change.
07:45That requires not just one country, but many countries to come together to find solutions that are sustainable, but that
07:55work for all of us.
07:57Professor, do you think AI strengthens global health security or threatens it?
08:05I'm just wondering, if we had another pandemic, knock on wood, would AI materially improve the world's response to a
08:14pandemic?
08:15Well, I mean, just to answer you directly, it does both.
08:20It does both. Threaten and strengthen.
08:22Absolutely, absolutely.
08:24We do know how AI can be misused to create, to help create, to help accelerate the creation of weapons
08:39that can actually destroy us.
08:42Now they're using AI for drug designs.
08:44Who knows what will happen if that technology falls in the wrong hands?
08:50It can be not a drug to cure people, but a drug to destroy people.
08:58But AI also comes with good things.
09:02We can be able to use it to model pandemics much, much, much better sometimes than traditional statistical models that
09:13we have used to understand pandemics.
09:17We can be able to use it to track and trace and recommend and protect people.
09:27So it depends on what mechanisms we put into place to prevent the misuse of AI and promote at a
09:39maximal level the good use of AI.
09:45So talk to me about that.
09:46How do we prevent the misuse of AI?
09:49Well, I think we need to have norms.
09:53We need to have regulations.
09:56We need to have policies.
09:58And some of these policies must happen at what we call the member state, Malaysia.
10:05Malaysia must have its own program in which it can be able to regulate AI.
10:12Some of these regulatory mechanisms must be at the international level.
10:19Cross-border data flow, data that flows across borders, must actually be regulated at the international level.
10:28Some of these regulations must be at the industry level.
10:34What equipments are fit for purpose should not be given, that decision should not be given to government.
10:44It requires experts who can be able to go to the lab and analyze the equipments themselves.
10:51What algorithm you use to create your own large language model, whether you use multi-layer perceptron or you use...
10:59What you train, what data is being trained on.
11:02It requires expert knowledge, and that expert knowledge resides in the private sector, in industry.
11:09So the international, the national and the industry must work in concert.
11:17They cannot work against one another.
11:21At one stage, they should meet to exchange notes to make sure that there are no things that actually fall
11:27between the cracks.
11:29Is there a danger if there is a reliance on the private sector, simply because maybe governments are thinking about
11:38it from a national security perspective?
11:41So if we let the private sector run the show, so to speak, is there a danger that we could
11:50fall into the misuse of AI?
11:52Could there be biases in the way AI is developed or designed?
11:59Of course, there are always risks.
12:01There are always risks.
12:04And I don't think private sector alone should be the driver of what is...
12:10Okay, so there should be a balance.
12:11There are just certain things that, you know, whoever is writing the code, there has to be some rules on
12:18how that code is going to be written.
12:20Okay.
12:22And whoever is going to have oversight of that code must be able to read the syntax of that code.
12:30And government bureaucrats perhaps are not the best to be able to do that.
12:36International organizations are perhaps not the appropriate people to do that, you know.
12:44And then you have another issue, the issue of whether AI can be applied in agriculture versus in the military.
12:57Government must set the rules as to how it is going to be applied in agriculture.
13:04The Department of Agriculture of Malaysia must set the rules, you know.
13:09Now, the Department of Transport must set the rules on how it is going to be applied to the area
13:18of transportation.
13:21And now when you go to the international level, and the United Nations has processes to do that,
13:27we have the scientific panel on AI, which is going to help us navigate the international norms
13:36that have to govern this.
13:40And this is very simple.
13:42You carry your smartphone that has an AI system.
13:47You get into an aeroplane to go on holiday in Europe or in other parts of the world.
13:56So this thing that you can use in Malaysia, you can also use it when you are traveling.
14:03So there has to be some international dimension that allows you to be able to use this under laws and
14:11norms that are harmonized.
14:13And that can only be done at the international level.
14:16Professor, when you say at the international level, do you mean at the UN level?
14:22Well, the UN is playing its part.
14:24The International Scientific Panel is at the UN.
14:28But there are standards that need to be set.
14:32You have another body that is not part of the United Nations called the International Standards Organization,
14:38the ISO, the so-called ISO.
14:40And it has made many, many standards.
14:43The ISO standards on the safety in the manufacturing settings,
14:49the standards around environmental pollution of technologies, for example.
14:54They are part of the multilateral system.
14:57And certainly as United Nations University, we consider them our sister organizations.
15:04And then you have, on the financing side, international organizations that are involved in international financing,
15:14the IMF, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization on the trade side.
15:19So you have, it's many, many entities that should play their own specific roles,
15:27depending on what the mandates have been given to them.
15:33And somebody has to coordinate all these activities,
15:36because if they are operating at different levels,
15:43you can easily enter a regime where there is disharmony.
15:49And therefore, the United Nations can play that role of convening all these players
15:57that are at the international level, but also at the national level.
16:00Okay. All right.
16:01Which is wonderful, because you brought us back to what you said initially,
16:05multilateralism that's fit for today.
16:07So talk to me a little bit about that.
16:08When do international institutions currently have both the capacity,
16:15but also the inherent authority to be setting these norms,
16:21to be governing some of these major questions of our time?
16:25Yes. I mean, the AI, we went to the General Assembly.
16:30The General Assembly has 193 members, which are countries, you know.
16:36And the scientific panel has been approved by the General Assembly.
16:43Overwhelmingly, by, almost by consensus.
16:48Overwhelmingly. It can never be 100%, you know.
16:52And therefore, that is a mandate that has been given.
16:54It does not mean that all these countries might have the same views
17:01on how this is going to be executed.
17:03And that is why we have an independent panel that has expertise,
17:10deeper expertise on the problem that we are solving,
17:13so that they can come and help us navigate all these issues that require navigation.
17:19Well, you sit in the intersection of research and policy.
17:23You are privy to all of these conversations.
17:24What are you hearing about what member states are most worried about?
17:31When they think about some of the threats,
17:34and they're anticipating some of the problems that need to be addressed today
17:38before they become problems, what are they talking about?
17:41What are they most concerned about?
17:42Well, I mean, I think there are issues around data.
17:45Data, okay.
17:46The data must be comprehensive.
17:49It must be accurate.
17:51It must be able to cross border if it is essential,
17:54whether it is about pandemics and so on and so forth.
17:57I think there are issues around computing,
18:01whether data centres, how are they going to be located,
18:06whether they are going to be powered by renewable energy,
18:10or they are going to exacerbate climate change.
18:14You have ideas of putting some of these data centres in space,
18:19which is a little bit far from where we are now.
18:22But you do have crazy ideas of people trying to put these data centres
18:26in the middle of the ocean.
18:28I don't think that is a good idea.
18:30How would that work?
18:31Well, of course, data centres require cooling.
18:35Cooling.
18:35And therefore, many people would like to use the deep sea as a cooler.
18:43And of course, we know that is going to be very, very destructive
18:47to the marine ecosystem.
18:51Very, very destructive.
18:52As far as I'm concerned, that is not a viable solution.
18:56That is a solution that the international community must actually not allow at all.
19:05There are issues about how you apply this technology that we are worried about.
19:09The militarisation of this technology through the so-called autonomous weapons,
19:17lethal weapons.
19:19In my own view, it must be banned.
19:22It should not be allowed.
19:23You know, these are worrying issues that we need to worry about.
19:29But with proper values, we can be able to overcome all this.
19:34And our values are derived from two documents.
19:37The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Charter.
19:41With proper behaviour of all players around AI,
19:45we can deal with these issues.
19:47with proper incentives, incentivising all role players
19:52to use this technology for good and not for bad.
19:57With proper policies and regulations and standards.
20:02Working with member states to help them formulate laws
20:09that are able to help us navigate this,
20:13we can be able to overcome all these issues.
20:16What role do countries like Malaysia,
20:20so middle-power countries like Malaysia,
20:22middle-income countries like Malaysia,
20:24what role do we play in that wider agenda?
20:28Or do we even have a role?
20:29You have a role.
20:31Okay.
20:31Significant role to play.
20:33Because this is not a technology that should be left to two countries alone.
20:39It will be a big, big mistake.
20:41And all of us are going to regret it.
20:43This is the technology that must find expression.
20:47Even in Malaysia.
20:49Malaysia must...
20:50There has to be a large language model in Malay, for example.
20:56And it is not going to be developed in Silicon Valley.
20:59It is going to be developed in Malaysia.
21:02There will be use cases that are going to be used in agriculture in Malaysia.
21:09In healthcare in Malaysia.
21:11In healthcare in Malaysia and so on and so forth.
21:13And I don't think that should be exported.
21:16Because when you export, when you import those solutions,
21:23then they are not fit for purpose.
21:26Because they probably are not...
21:29Certainly they will not have been developed by people who understand the values of Malaysia.
21:35The values of Malaysia must be embedded in those systems that are developed here.
21:39Absolutely.
21:40Are you seeing that around the world?
21:42So, in other Global South countries, are you seeing them develop their own AI systems
21:47to better reflect their values, their populations, their circumstances?
21:52I think it depends on the AI readiness.
21:55And the AI readiness depends on several factors.
21:57The first one, it requires basic literacy.
22:03And basic literacy is still not a universal reality.
22:08There are still countries that are falling behind.
22:11But it's not enough.
22:13Then it requires the second level, which is digital literacy.
22:17The ability to play around with devices.
22:21That is also not universal.
22:24Even in some of the most advanced countries,
22:26people do not have access to adequate tools that they can be able to use.
22:33And then the third is AI literacy.
22:38We have developed a course, a free online course.
22:43United Nations University has developed a free online course
22:46that anybody can come, can take online and get a certificate.
22:51No cost.
22:52The only cost, obviously, is your data.
22:54Yeah.
22:55Because you have to connect and listen and so on and so forth.
22:59You know, you must have the devices and so on and so forth.
23:02So these are very important issues that we need to tackle.
23:08Definitely.
23:09And what is next, do you think, for the UN University in Malaysia?
23:14How do you think you might deepen the cooperation?
23:17And maybe stay a bit longer the next visit?
23:19No, no, because we are doing a lot of things in Malaysia.
23:22We will continue to support global health through our institute in Malaysia.
23:32We are now introducing a master's programme that is going to deal with issues of global health.
23:40We are working on digital health.
23:44How do you use, firstly, digital technology and, at an advanced level, AI technology
23:53to promote some of the objectives that we have set ourselves in global health.
23:58How do we effectively, I think, the success of our work in global health is how do we bring
24:09down the cost of medical care?
24:13Exactly.
24:14Whether it is through the cost of drugs that are required, whether it is through the cost
24:24of infrastructure that is required to give people health so that we can be able to take
24:31people, give people access to health.
24:33And this is not even the issue of global south versus the global north.
24:41I was reading a report that in North America, almost 300,000 people every year are declared
24:49bankrupt from medical debt.
24:54So this is a universal issue that requires all of us to think together, to work together,
25:03to collaborate, to make sure that we create an environment where health becomes a human
25:09right that is fulfilled.
25:12Thank you so much for being on the show with me today and sharing some of your insights with
25:16us.
25:16I appreciate your time.
25:17Thank you very much.
25:18That's all the time we have for you on this episode of Consider This.
25:21I'm Melissa Idris signing off for the evening.
25:23Thank you so much for watching and goodnight.
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