by Jerome Glenn

There was tons of excitement at the opening of the UN Summit of the Future non-Governmental sessions, but it was terribly superficial, childish, yet the UN Secretary-General did make more serious comments. Then there were special sessions for two days, the following photo is from the science diplomacy session that was quite good.

I was invited to two additional side sessions. One on how to make the UN more effective in conflict prevention and resolution and another session on AI by the Club of Rome Canada and US chapters.

UN Peace session had 25 or so senior UN folks (e.g., Former President of the General Assembly, former Chief of Policy Planning UN Dept of Political Affairs, current Dept of Peacekeeping Operations, Head of the Legal Dept, etc.). There were many good ideas and a documentary will be made from this session. One UN negotiator said Russia and Ukraine agreed to Peacekeeping Forces, but then they could not agree on where the UN forces would be placed – so the negotiations broke down.

I gave an hour presentation to the Club of Rome session on our AGI work,  that I am told will also be video archived.

On Saturday afternoon I spoke at the UN Council of Presidents of the UN General Assembly. This is a group of former Presidents of the General Assembly who work with the current President of the GA on agenda and how make the GA more effective (as the UN Security Council is deadlocked several issues). Attached is a short overview that I was asked to give in addition to my oral remarks. Both were very well received, including the suggestion of a 3-5 day special session of the GA next year on AGI. This would stimulate countries to figure out their position on AGI.  I will speak in more detail about managing the transition to AGI in Korea end of next month to their annual conference.  Most of the former Presidents of the UNGA were also Presidents or Prime Ministers of their countries. 12 where present at thus meeting that was opened by the current President of the GA, who will preside over the Summit of the Future.

The final documents: Pact for the Future and the Global Digital Compact were still in negotiation as I left NY, but seems that global governance of AI got in after all, but not stating AGI as such. The documents are supposed to be announced Sunday. Ibon will be there for the main Summit and will tell us what happened.

Now to get ready for the MPPC meeting in Monterrey, Mexico.

Cheers!

Jerry