World leaders, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, gathered in Paris on the weekend for the Global Partnership on AI.

Trudeau says the focus of conversation was not on if, but how, AI will affect our daily lives.

He says a key highlight and concern is to ensure that AI is not used to further divide society and destabilize democracy, but to make it stronger.

Trudeau outlined some of the concerns discussed on making the most of AI instead of allowing it to be used in negative ways. He says democracies need to focus on “how we make sure that we have the energy to power AI in a clean enough way, and an efficient enough way, that’s not going to set us back in our fight to reduce carbon emissions. How we move forward in responsible AI that actually isn’t used for evil, or to divide or to cause misinformation or disinformation to further destabilize our democracies.”

Trudeau says the Global Partnership is also trying to make sure that all of humanity benefits.

He likened the development of AI to the impact that the development of electricity had, however there are still large parts of the world that still doesn’t have access to electricity. “If we have a similar delay in terms of the adoption of AI around the world, the consequences will be even more catastrophic and more painful, not just for those who don’t have access to it, but the divisions and conflicts that will result.”