Conference primer: Innovation and Technology: 2023

• US President Joe Biden signed his nation’s first AI executive order, with a huge swath of directives for federal agencies to guide the use of AI.
• A summit in the United Kingdom, attended by world leaders and representatives of big tech, produced the Bletchley Declaration, which pledges international cooperation to manage the risks posed by the most advanced systems.
• The United States and the United Kingdom both committed to funding expensive computing infrastructure that AI researchers need. “Right now, all of the capabilities to work with these systems is in the hands of companies that want to make money from them,” says Yoshua Bengio, an AI pioneer who attended the summit. “We need academics and government-funded organizations that are really working to protect the public to be able to understand these systems better.”

From the corridors of the Palais des Nations in Geneva to bustling embassies around the world, diplomats are increasingly relying on artificial intelligence (AI) to implement foreign policy, with a range of services and routine operations opening up to the prospect of AI.
AI is an umbrella term that refers to several technologies. There are many definitions, but for simplification, we’ll refer to it here as “a system’s ability to correctly interpret external data, to learn from such data, and to use those learnings to achieve specific goals and tasks through flexible adaptation”.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres identified three areas for action: closing the connectivity gap; closing the governance gap; and reenforcing a human rights and human-centered approach to digital cooperation.

Framed by the outcomes of the 2023 IGF, the Global Digital Compact will be annexed to the intergovernmentally negotiated Pact for the Future to be adopted at the Summit of the Future in 2024.

Opening Gesda’s third annual summit on Wednesday, chair Peter Brabeck-Letmathe said the collaboration will provide it with the financial firepower it needs to move ahead with plans for the ambitious education programme.
He said the curriculum, which it has been working on for two years with the help of institutions including the University of Geneva, ETH Zurich, and Cern, aims to “fill the knowledge gaps" between scientific researchers and policymakers so that they’re better equipped to address emerging global challenges.

Five years after the organisation was set up in Geneva to map and promote technological innovation in the health sector, the International Digital Health and Artificial Intelligence Research Collaborative (I-Dair) is expected to shift its strategy after the recent nomination of Portuguese physician and politician Ricardo Baptista Leite as its CEO.
I-Dair was launched in 2019 following a report from a session on digital cooperation convened by United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, and till June 2022 was led by Amandeep Singh Gill, now the UN secretary general's envoy on technology. It has since become a foundation working with international organisations, the private sector and governments to promote digital health.

“The exhibits give all visitors the chance to interact with CERN’s science, technology and even the people,” explains Emma Sanders, head of the Science Gateway exhibition team. “We really enjoyed the CERNois visits last week and often heard members of the CERN community keen to come back soon with members of their family.

“CERN thrives on collaboration,” continues Emma, “and Science Gateway is no exception. I thank all the many members of the CERN community who have been involved in developing the exhibitions, as well as all the guide volunteers, for making this exciting interactive experience possible.”

In the bustling corridors of international Geneva, where discussions about regulating autonomous weapons systems, or "killer robots," have echoed for nearly a decade, a glimmer of good news emerged last week when the city welcomed an assembly of over 50 robots aimed at highlighting the positive uses of artificial intelligence (AI).
The robotic delegation and their creators occupied two floors of the Geneva convention centre during the AI for Good summit, the biggest United Nations event on AI, and had a dedicated stage to where they showcased their potential to boost the UN's languishing sustainable development goals.

As the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) holds its fourth edition of the AI for Good summit in Geneva on 6 and 7 July, those words largely reflect today’s reality.

The outcomes will be crystallized in a Global Digital Compact – an outline of shared principles, objectives, and actions to address current gaps in digital governance.

His final questions to the audience attending the digital and tech world’s biggest event resonated like a wake-up call for an industry often in awe over its “move fast and break things” motto.