Nitin Sawhney, Oct 21, 2026.
At the opening of our symposium three weeks ago I reflected on why we are here to discuss ๐๐ฅ๐จ๐๐๐ฅ ๐๐ ๐๐จ๐ฏ๐๐ซ๐ง๐๐ง๐๐ ๐ข๐ง ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐ฎ๐๐ฅ๐ข๐ ๐๐ง๐ ๐๐ฅ๐๐ง๐๐ญ๐๐ซ๐ฒ ๐๐ง๐ญ๐๐ซ๐๐ฌ๐ญ? In my opening words I evoked everyday conversations and anxieties about AI, critical voices of writers like ๐๐ซ๐ฎ๐ง๐๐ก๐๐ญ๐ข ๐๐จ๐ฒ, and a tribute to Nobel Peace Prize laureate ๐๐๐ฏ๐ข ๐๐ข๐ฅ๐ฅ๐๐ฒ.
Thank you everyone for joining us today in-person and in our Livestream. Thanks Laura and Mathieu for your kind collaboration to make this event possible.
I also wish to thank our cooperating partners, the Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence (FCAI), Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT), University of Helsinki, Embassy of France in Helsinki, Global AI Policy Research Network (GlobAIpol), and UN Global Pulse for their support of this symposium.
And finally thanks to the nearly 40 speakers, panelists, moderators, and discussants who are joining us for keynotes and 8 thematic panel sessions today, and also two sets of film screening events at Cinema Orion tomorrow and on Sunday as part of the extended program of this symposium. Itโs hard to believe that barely two months ago we were just beginning to conceptualize how this would all take shape and I must say with your contributions and participation it has already far exceeded our expectations.
Why are we here today to discuss Global AI Governance in the Public and Planetary Interest?
Maybe Iโll start with the small everyday conversations that mothers are having with their children on kitchen tables around the world, cautioning them about using ChatGPT for their homework assignments or those very same kids warning their parents about the perils of AI on the environmental and disinformation, as we have heard voiced from many young people lately.
So the realm of discourse about AI has already moved beyond our research labs, where we as computer scientists belabored building machine learning systems over the past few decades, to the halls of those in parliaments, policymakers and indeed to the kitchen tables of everyday conversations.
The excitement and anxieties are intertwined as we confront a new world of imaginative possibility and nearly existential risks that many would have us believe.
Somewhere in between are gentler and more critical voices of writers like Arundhati Roy, who recently published a widely acclaimed essay in Equator Magazine, Apocalypse Now and Then, where she calls โArtificial intelligence as capitalismโs final destinationโ.
Just to quote some brief excerpts:
โAI has crashed into the world of literature, leaving writers, publishers, literary agents, readers, critics, teachers and students feeling the ground give way under their feet. Professors must now look at student assignments with distrust. Publishers have to evaluate new writers like detectives inspecting a potential crime scene. Itโs hard to describe what this does to reading or learning. The joy and challenge of intellectual engagement has been replaced by something closed, mordant and mechanical.
And when this happens to a whole society, a whole species, when we can no longer rely on instincts that have been learned over centuries, passed down from generation to generation, when we can no longer trust our hearts, our eyes or our ears, when we can no longer tell truth from falsehood or the virtual from the real, when time collapses and the past, present and future run into each other, when a million languages and cultures are pureed into glop, when an ancient social compact โ whatever its limitations and flaws โ is smashed beyond recognition, are we setting ourselves up for mass psychosis?
Asking to be regulated is an attempt to graft the industry onto the state, to shut out every last chink of daylight between the government and these corporations. The oligarchsโ hope is that this regulatory embrace will give them the blank cheque they so badly need. Because the scale of money, land, water and energy that they require can only be provided by the government. Not to put too fine a point on it, what they really want is government permission to self-regulate. Legitimacy without ceding control.
To protect the US from the threat of a rising China, Cyclopes offers the US government an array of lethal autonomous weapons systems that other countries cannot dream of, as well as the fantasy of lab-grown viruses and bioweapons thus far unknown to science. To contain and align restive populations domestically, it offers the US and other friendly governments surveillance and facial-recognition systems that promise to make Israelโs Pegasus spyware look like a toy. In return, it demands unimpeded capital flows, and the promise of as much land, water and energy as it needs to service its giant data centres and supercomputers.โ
In this symposium we unpack many of these concerns through the lens of responsible AI governance in the public and planetary interest. We look optimistically at how we can develop the right frameworks, practices and polices that engage interdisciplinary expertise, democratic norms and civil society participation, evidence-based research and global collaboration.
I just want to end with a brief tribute to Navi Pillay, the South African jurist and former high commissioner for human rights of the United Nations, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the first South African woman to be honored as such. She was also the chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
โThe Norwegian Nobel Committee attaches importance to Navi Pillayโs role as a driving force in the development of an international system of law and order, while further emphasising her judicial rigour, personal integrity and considerable courage. At a time when the number of wars and conflicts is rising, and when judges and institutions of international law are under political attack, the Nobel Committee wishes to issue a reminder that the ability to resolve conflicts without force or violence is dependent on the international rule of law. An international legal system in which war criminals are held to account and the victims of abuse see justice served is a precondition for a peaceful world.โ
This award is not just a recognition of Navi Pillayโs extraordinary work, but a tribute to all UN organizations and international agencies striving to to make the world a better place in the Public and Planetary Interest.