From February 13rd, Consultations on the Preparatory Process of the Summit of the Future by the United Nations have been planned in preparation for the Ministerial Meeting, currently scheduled for September 18, 2023. The consultations are oriented towards, but not limited to, the Policy Briefs that will be published by the Secretary-General in the coming months.
On February 15, 2023, Jerome C. Glenn, Executive Director of The Millennium Project, had the opportunity to add a 2-minute statement to the UN informal Consultantions (“Online Consultations for major and other Stakeholders”) on the Summit of the Future:

“On behalf of The Millennium Project’s 27 years of global futures research, I have the honor to recommend that the UN Summit on the Future include discussions for a UN Treaty on Artificial General Intelligence – not narrow AI we have today day, but general AI we could have in 10 to 20 years. If we do not get the initial conditions right for this future AGI, then it could evolve into a super intelligence beyond our control. This is what Hawking, Gates, and others have warned about.
Some think that such discussion of regulation is premature or that it will hurt the development of AGI, but this forgets that it could take 10 or more years to create agreements on initial conditions for AGI, then a UN treaty, and then a global governance system. We have to create a global agreement on how to manage AGI BEFORE it gets created. This could be the most difficult management challenge we face today.“

Of the 40 to 50 two-minute presentations at the UN prep meeting held on Feb. 15 for NGO input to the UN Summit on the Future planning, Jerome C. Glenn was the only futurist.  
The UN Summit on the Future in 2024 is a great opportunity to get futures integrated into global decisionmaking – as never before in history – and we heartily invite futurists to get more involved in the process. How?

There are two tracks for planning the Summit on the Future: 1) governments and UN Agencies; and 2) everyone else: NGOs, business, universities, think tanks, etc.

• Track 1: Contact you Ministry of Foreign Affairs and offer to help their preparations for your country’s input to the UN Summit on the Future;
• Track 1: WFSF should be involved in UNESCO’s input to the Summit;
• Track 2 Review the UN Summit on the Future roadmap (attached) to see where you might intervene – both as an individual and with your institution;
•  Write articles, blogs, contact news media about all this; and
•  Read UN Foresight report on the Summit and four other foresight elements of Our Common Agenda to stimulate your other ideas and ways to participate. You can download the full report here in English, Spanish, Chinese, the executive summary in Italian.

Contact Jerome C. Glenn for information and support at jerome.glenn@millennium-project.org.

Watch Glenn’s statement and the whole UN informal consultations on the Summit of the Future (Wednesday, 15 February 2023, 10:00 a.m.) at the following link: https://media.un.org/en/webtv