The Millennium Project, in collaboration with the World Academy of Art and Science and the World Futures Study Federation, sent an open letter today to the incoming President of the UN General Assembly, His Excellency Mr. Philémon Yang, regarding the development, security, and governance of future forms of AI called artificial general intelligence (AGI).

This open letter, signed by 230 political, business, and academic leaders in artificial intelligence and futures research, warns that within the coming decade, “many versions of unregulated AGI could be released on the Internet. Without national licensing systems and UN coordination, humanity could lose control of AGI, which can rewrite its own code, getting smarter and smarter, moment-by-moment and evolving into an Artificial Super Intelligence far beyond our control or understanding.”

Calls for UN convention on AI

The letter calls for a UN resolution to create a committee of the willing to draft a UN Convention on AI with two sections, one on Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) and one on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which could “lead to the creation of a specialized agency for the governance and safe development of artificial Intelligence in all its forms.”

‘Most difficult problem humanity has ever faced‘

In a recent international study on regulations and global governance structures for the transition to AGI (to be published in the State of the Future 20.0 next week), a multi-stakeholder, hybrid (AI and human) governance system was rated the most likely to ensure that current and future AI development aligns with human rights and well-being.

“Governing the transition to AGI could be the most complex, difficult management problem humanity has ever faced,” says Jerome Glenn, CEO of the Millennium Project. According to Stuart Russell, a leading AI expert at the University of California, Berkeley, “failure to solve [AGI management] before proceeding to create AGI systems would be a fatal mistake for human civilization. No entity has the right to make that mistake.”

Full disclosure: writer Amara Angelica is an advisor to the Millennium Project.

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