HIGH-LEVEL POLICY DIALOGUE ON “THE EVOLVING AI GOVERNANCE LANDSCAPE: STRIKING A BALANCE BETWEEN POLICY, PROGRESS AND PRACTICAL APPLICATION” CLOSING REMARKS – ASSISTANT SECRETARY GENERAL LAURA GIL

November 12, 2025 - Washington, DC

“I am sorry, Dave, I am afraid I cannot do that”, said Hal in 1968. Since home video systems became available, my father and I engage in one of those strange rituals families have a way of quietly establishing: every year, around Thanksgiving time, we watch Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 Space Odyssey. I have seen it so many times that I can recite Hal’s voice by memory: calm, polite, terrifying. When I was younger, Hal embodied science fiction. Today Hal has become prophecy.

I do not frighten easily - not in politics, not in life, not in diplomacy, and, certainly, not here at the OAS -. But artificial intelligence has become my monster in the closet. The more I learn about it - and I am making the effort to educate myself -, the more artificial intelligence unsettles me.

Yet, when I think of 2001 Space Odissey, what stays with me is not only Hal’s coldness, but also the stubborn, fragile, beautiful persistence of human curiosity, that instinct that makes us explore, question and dream.

Stephen Hawking warned back in 2014 that Artificial Intelligence could be “the best or the worst thing that ever happens to humanity.” By now, we can all agree, I believe, experts and beginners, that artificial intelligence challenges our very notions of humanity and power.

For the first time, machines are not merely calculating; they are reasoning for us, creating for us, deciding for us, and replacing us. The question for me now is one and one only: who decides what kind of humanity we want artificial intelligence help us build?


Good afternoon to all,

Allow me to begin by expressing my warmest appreciation to Mrs. Kim Osborne, Executive Secretary for Integral Development, and to her team at SEDI, for convening this timely and necessary dialogue.


I also thank Secretary General Albert Ramdin for his opening remarks and his continued commitment to inter-American cooperation and to all the distinguished panelists whose expertise has illuminated today’s discussion.

And to each of you, representatives of our member states, permanent observers, academia, the private sector, and civil society, thank you for being part of a conversation that touches the very heart of our shared humanity.

In 2025, we have witnessed extraordinary breakthroughs. GPT-5 has brought reasoning and planning into mainstream systems. Global companies are merging AI with robotics. In China, autonomous robots have already played a complete football match without human input.

Across the world, AI is diagnosing cancer, detecting fraud, drafting laws, choosing our partners, and composing music. Right here, at the OAS, we are moving towards artificial intelligence for translation and perhaps even interpretation.

Humanity has crossed a threshold. Machines are no longer simply assisting us; they are learning from us and replacing us.


As I understand it, to be intelligent is to be human, to have the ability to say please, thank you, sorry, and I love you. Intelligence is what makes us ask before we judge, what makes us choose dialogue over violence, respect over abuse, cooperation over domination. Now, some are telling us that this very intelligence, the intelligence of being human, will be artificial.

So I am scared: what will happen when we begin to imitate compassion instead of feeling it?

What will happen when machines start killing each other and later learn to say “let’s not kill each other”? Would we, humans, have stopped killing each other, by then? Would we care more about the death of machines than human beings, or would we have forgotten altogether what those words mean?

If intelligence becomes detached from conscience, we risk creating a civilization that knows everything except how to care, how to love, how to feel. Connection without conscience is not love; it is only imitation.

Neuroscience tells us that constant exposure to generative models reshapes our attention, alters emotion, and weakens memory. Our youth is already affected. MIT found a 47% collapse in brain activity when people wrote with ChatGPT compared to writing unaided. The governance of AI is therefore not just a technological issue: it is a matter of mental health and cognitive freedom.

Philosopher Byung-Chul Han warns that the power of our century has shifted from physical control to psychological influence. Minds, not bodies. Domination is no longer enforced through fear but through seduction, not oppression, through the promise of convenience.

Artificial Intelligence is not just another tool. It is the new technology of power We cannot allow the tools that serve us to erode our capacity to feel, to connect, and to think critically. What can remain of us in this new world is what cannot be replicated: consciousness, empathy, and wonder.

That is what we must protect in a world that embraces artificial intelligence, through ethics, governance, and public policy rooted in human rights.

How can the leadership of the Organization of American States guide our member states through this new frontier? How can the OAS help ensure that Artificial Intelligence serves our hemisphere instead of mastering it? Or, worse, serve as a tool for others to dominate it?

Our own SEDI’s data reveal a striking reality:

Latin America and the Caribbean account for up to 20 percent of global AI application downloads; yet, we generate barely 1 percent of AI innovation investment and are projected to receive only 3 percent of its economic benefits by 2030. This is not only a technological gap; it is an ethical one.
A region that consumes innovation without shaping it risks surrendering its sovereignty over the future.

AI expands our capabilities, but it also magnifies our inequalities, our biases, and our vulnerabilities in an already unequal, biased, and vulnerable hemisphere.

So, where does the OAS stand? How will we protect our people, our democracies, and our rights — and, more importantly, how will we harness this power to strengthen them?

At the OAS, we approach this transformation from a human-centered perspective.

Our mission to defend democracy, promote human rights, and advance sustainable development must extend into the digital sphere.

In preparation for this dialogue, my team together with several OAS National Offices consolidated an updated overview of AI developments across the hemisphere. I thank them for their rigor and dedication.

Each office contributed verified information, checked through at least two sources — on national strategies, use cases, and challenges.

This exercise embodies the transparency and cooperation that define our Organization.

I also thank SEDI for its contributions, which were carefully reviewed and curated.

Here is a summary:

The region is entering a new phase of digital maturity, characterized by the progressive and diverse adoption of artificial intelligence as a driver of state, economic, and social transformation. Countries such as Uruguay, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ecuador, and Mexico lead with national strategies, regulatory frameworks, or specific laws promoting ethical, inclusive, and sustainable AI, aligned with the principles of UNESCO and the OECD.


Guatemala and Panama are developing participatory, co-created strategies, while Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica are integrating AI into their innovation and digital education agendas. Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and The Bahamas are advancing governance frameworks, digital literacy, and regional cooperation under the CARICOM AI Policy Roadmap, the EU–LAC Digital Alliance, and the Caribbean AI Task Force.


Across the hemisphere, AI is being integrated into key sectors such as health (telemedicine, digital health records), education (AI curricula, digital literacy), agriculture (predictive analytics, sensors, and drones), justice (document automation), and public services (E-ID, chatbots, and single digital windows).


However, structural challenges continue to limit the full development of the regional digital ecosystem: infrastructure and connectivity gaps, a shortage of specialized talent, insufficient investment in R&D&I, and the lack of harmonized ethical frameworks.


Caribbean island states also face high energy costs and climate vulnerability, which hinder the establishment of data centers and high-capacity networks. Yet, the hemisphere shows an unprecedented convergence, a shared understanding that AI must not replace the human being but rather amplify collective intelligence, safeguard rights, and strengthen democracies. Through ethical governance and inter-American cooperation, Latin America and the Caribbean can become a laboratory of human-centered innovation, where artificial intelligence serves as a catalyst for equity, resilience, and sustainable development.


Through SEDI’s Department of Competitiveness, Innovation and Technology, the Organization supports member states in linking innovation to ethics.
CITEL and CICTE strengthen cybersecurity and trust frameworks, while the Department of Access to Rights and Equity reminds us that digital inclusion, gender and ethnic equality, and non-discrimination must remain at the core of every technological design.

Innovation must serve people, not markets. Technology must strengthen democracy, not replace it. Across the Americas, progress is already visible.

These examples remind us that technology is not destiny; it is direction, and that direction must be guided by ethics, evidence, and equity.

At the Seventh Meeting of Ministers and High Authorities of Science and Technology, held here in Washington in 2024, ministers adopted the Declaration and Plan of Action “Towards the Safe, Secure and Trustworthy Development and Deployment of Artificial Intelligence in the Americas.”

That milestone reaffirmed a shared hemispheric vision: to ensure that AI is developed and deployed in ways that are safe, secure, trustworthy, and human-centered.

It calls on member states to design governance frameworks, strengthen capacities, and foster public-private partnerships that promote innovation while respecting democracy and human rights.

The accompanying Plan of Action created two working groups under COMCYT, one on governance and institutional models and another on regional cooperation frameworks, and it strengthened the OAS Youth Academy on Transformative Technologies and the Network of OAS Centers of Excellence.

Education, research, and digital skills are the foundation of trustworthy AI.

Together, these mandates make the OAS the hemispheric platform for an Inter-American AI Agenda grounded in ethics, inclusion, and sustainable development.

And as this agenda advances, we also look outward. The OAS stands ready to work with global partners — from the United Nations to the Inter-American Development Bank and UNESCO so that the Americas’ voice helps shape the global norms and values guiding Artificial Intelligence.

The OAS believes that governance - I repeat, not the market - must lead this debate, ensuring privacy, accountability, and dignity while enabling innovation that serves inclusion and development.

We must move from data competition to data cooperation, from surveillance to solidarity, from algorithmic opacity to Inter-American transparency.

Perhaps it is time to envision an Inter-American Charter on Ethical Principles for Artificial Intelligence, a moral compass for governments, businesses, and citizens navigating this new terrain of power. The Americas can lead the way, proving that technology can be governed by conscience, not by chaos. The Americas have been pioneer in the development of norms and standards. I invite you to lead the way once again.

What can my office do to contribute an initiative of this sort? Several months ago, member states decided that the office of the Assistant Secretary General would be in charge of relations with civil society. I can contribute to bring civil society’s views to the table in a coordinated and articulated manner.


It is fitting that my trajectory comes from the defense of human rights, and this Organization exists to defend the rights of our people.

Artificial Intelligence can either replicate injustice or repair it. It can marginalize or empower. The choice lies in how we build and deploy it.

For women, Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendant communities, migrants, and persons with disabilities, AI must be a path to visibility and participation - not a new form of exclusion.

Inclusion, diversity, and accessibility must remain non-negotiable principles in our hemispheric digital agenda.

If we govern AI wisely, our children will not grow up fearing replacement but believing in renewal: they will live in a world where technology amplifies their humanity instead of erasing it.

Now, I am less worried when I remember that Artificial Intelligence can write poems but cannot feel them.

It can generate images but cannot see beauty.

It can simulate our voices but cannot give them meaning.

Our task, as diplomats, scientists, and citizens, is to ensure that human intelligence remains the heart of artificial intelligence.

I began with a confession and a call, and I would like to end the same way.

I must confess: I asked Artificial Intelligence what I should say to you this afternoon. Polished and perfect, the answer had all the right words. I’ll admit: it would have made me sound good. Notwithstanding, both the form and the substance fell short. The message summarized everything we want to hear, the totality of what we are supposed to say, but not what we need to do: to be a little less politically correct and a little more human.

Please don’t misunderstand me. AI is already here, and it is here to stay.
My team uses it. The OAS uses it. The world uses it.

But our call, my call, is to make sure that, as Stephen Hawking urged before he passed, we “employ best practice and effective management,” and prepare for the consequences of AI well in advance.

Hawking described a complex relationship: while expressing his fears, he also acknowledged its benefits and his own reliance on AI for communication, calling it “crucial to the future of our civilization and our species.” He even suggested that a global approach was necessary: international cooperation to set standards for AI development.

That is precisely the kind of leadership the Americas can offer, one that joins foresight with humility, science with ethics, and progress with compassion.

Because in the end, no algorithm can replace courage, conscience, or the human voice that dares to question power.

And if you don’t trust me…trust AI. That’s what the chatbox says.
Thank you very much.