WTO: AI raises questions about digital divide, trade barriers, IP rights

Artificial intelligence could be a significant boon to global trade by boosting productivity and reducing costs, but it might also deepen the digital divide between large and smaller economies, create trade barriers and prompt challenges over how intellectual property rights are treated, according to a new report issued by the World Trade Organization. “AI is a general-purpose technology that has entered the public consciousness with remarkable speed and intensity,” WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said in a foreword to the report,...