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Global Dialogue on AI Governance

  • Writer: Rick Bonetti
    Rick Bonetti
  • Jul 4
  • 3 min read

Updated: Jul 5


"The question is no longer whether AI will transform our world – it already is. The question is whether we will govern this transformation together – or let it govern us." ~ António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations

On July 1, 2026, the United Nations released a preliminary report of the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence, produced by 40 scientists from 37 countries, AI: Evidence-based assessment of opportunities, risks and impacts of AI. Yoshua Bengio (Canada) and Maria Ressa (Philippines) are Co-Chairs of the Panel. Below are a few highlights from the Executive Summary:

  • The potential benefits of AI are enormous. Deployed and applied thoughtfully, AI can support progress towards achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, advance health science, and increase access to education. At the same time, the rapid pace of technological development and the breadth of potential applications present policymakers with significant challenges.

  • The rapid, unchecked deployment of the technology at scale also presents considerable risks, including harms to the mental health of users, potential use as a destructive tool, impacts on social, economic, and environmental systems, and challenges associated with controlling the technology.

  • Recent years have seen rapid, and in some areas accelerating, progress in a range of AI capabilities. These gains have unlocked useful applications across science, health, agriculture, accessibility, knowledge work, and information technology, including in the development of AI itself.

  • AI development entails risks, with potential negative impacts on human rights, social systems, and the environment.

  • AI agents carry significant implications across all industries. At the same time, their deployment raises urgent questions for labour markets, cybersecurity, the information ecosystem, and the governance and controllability of future AI systems.

  • The gap between rapidly improving capabilities and effective risk management methods may lead to catastrophic outcomes. For example, advanced technical abilities may allow novice private actors to use AI in malicious ways across a range of applications such as fraud, social engineering, cybersecurity, and disinformation,

    biotechnology, and financial manipulation.


July 6-7, 2026, will be the inaugural Global Dialogue on AI Governance, to be held in Geneva, Switzerland.


A March 29, 2023, Open Letter Pause Giant AI Experiments called for "all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4." The Open Letter has now been signed by over 33,700 people, including notables such as Yoshua Bengio, Stuart Russell, Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and Yuval Noah Harari.


In March 2026, Future of Life Institute (FLI) organized the Pro-Human AI Declaration, which is a cross-partisan statement calling for AI to serve humanity rather than replace it. The declaration outlined five principles covering human control of AI systems:

  1. Keeping humans in charge

  2. Avoiding concentration of power

  3. Protecting the human experience

  4. Human agency and liberty

  5. Responsibility and accountability for AI companies


To understand some of the concerns about AI, see:

"Viewing ASI’s rise as an evolutionary step within a planetary superorganism, where human and artificial minds entwine in profound interdependence... offers hope for collaborative synergy, especially on a watery planet." ~ Gregory Stock

On July 30, 2026, at 4 p.m. PDT, the World Institute for Science, Religion and Culture (WISR) is presenting a webinar panel discussion, Pope Leo’s Magnifica humanitas:  Who has the last word on AI? with Ilia Delio, Gregory Stock, Georg Theiner, Robert Geraci, and Jacob Given. Four experts in artificial intelligence and religion will join Ilia Delio and ask what the Pope gets right and wrong in this important work." The panel will discuss Pope Leo’s recent encyclical, which calls for constraints and ethical norms for the use and development of AI. Register here.

“In 10 years, either we’ll have an effective system of global governance or the planet will have dissolved into unprecedented chaos and conflict.” ~ Robert Wright, author of the new book, The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning

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