Mini Trip Report: Uruguay – II Summit on Parliamentary Committees for the Future

Posted by Mara Di Berardo
On 3 October 2023
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artificial general intelligence, Committee for the future, Uruguay Node

Creating and enforcing the regulations for the transition from Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) to Artificial General intelligence (AGI) could be the most difficult challenge humanity has ever faced. National Assemblies/Parliaments/Congresses will determine the success or failure of this challenge.

Over 50 countries sent national Parliamentary delegations to Montevideo, Uruguay, to explore creating their own Parliamentary Committees for the Future and how to address the problems and opportunities of AGI. Lydia Garrido, Chair of the Uru,guay Node of The Millennium Project, was the key organizer of this historic event on foresight, democracy, and AGI governance. The International Parliament Union has joined this global movement to add Committees for the Future in every Parliament/Congress in the world. Also speaking at this event was Shermon Cruz, Chair of the Philip p ines Node, and Clem Bezold, Member of the Millennium Project Planning Committee.

Two workshops, each with eight working groups, discussed: 1) how to future-orient their legislature; 2) how to address regulatory issues of frontier AI; and 3) suggested elements for the Summit Declaration to be released in two or three weeks. During the closing plenary, the head of the Slovenian delegation recommended that the Summit Declaration include a call for a UN Convention on future AI. Just a year ago, there was very little talk about national and international regulations of frontier AI; the movement on these issues has really progressed very fast.

My 23 minute address is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkdwXkbMUG0&t=26156s and 1.5 minutes video on the Summit: https://youtu.be/jSx_KkeGXak

Following this very successful Summit, Lydia and I met with the Uruguay President’s chief of digital transition about coordinating the development of national regulations of future AI with UN regulations currently in development by the UN Secretary-General’s team creating the framework for global governance of frontier AI. We then met with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ head of international organization affairs on the same issues, who said he will create a Latin American group of countries to propose the development of a UN Convention on AGI or Frontier AI in the UN General Assembly.