Mini Trip Report: Finland and UK

by Jerome Glenn

Turku School of Economics brought me to address the Futures of Technologies conference (330 from 40 countries) at the recommendation of Sirkka Heinonen, Chair of The Millennium Project Helsinki Node. The visit began in Helsinki with a delightful lunch with the Foresight Head in the Prime Minister’s Office arranged by Sirkka, where we discussed Finland’s use of the Artificial General Intelligence AGI report of the Council of Presidents of the UN General Assembly, and our Work/Tech 2050 report.

After the very successful Turku conference, I returned to Helsinki to meet with senior staff of the Parliamentary Committee for the Future about the geopolitical situation, the AGI report, and the next World Summit of Parliamentary Committees for the Future. During the Turku conference, the Singapore delegation requested a private meeting to learn more about The Millennium Project and global situation and futures research. I suggested that Singapore could play the middleman role between China and the UN on AGI, as Finland did between the US and the USSR during the Cold War. Attached is the file of my keynote address in Turku. I also participated in the two workshops organized by Sirkka that were packed! All-in-all an excellent conference with many great conversations including meeting two from Iran that got their PhDs using Millennium Project materials.

Then on to London where Rohit Talwar, Co-Chair of the UK Node organized an all-day seminar with three two-hour sessions: the State of the Future 20.0; the AGI report; and ending with a two-hour session on a variety of futures issues, concepts, and methods. One interesting development during this seminar… I asked that people bring the AGI report to the attention of the UK Minister of Foreign Affairs and implications for a UK national AGI licensing system to Members of Parliament…then one participant asked for a show of hands of all those who would actually do that. Most of the hands went up and later the same participant asked that all those who raised their hands to come to the front of the room for a group picture.

And now to catch up sleep and tons of emails.

Jerry