🇺🇳 Can the UN keep up?

Good morning from New York!

I admit to being surprised at how little attention major media outlets seemed to pay to the ‘special United Nations Security Council meeting on Ukraine’ yesterday. Was it because no one wanted to republish Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s barefaced lies, or has Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky exhausted everyone’s attention?

The real focus of Wednesday was divided between the Climate Ambition Summit and the multiple bilateral meetings between leaders that occurred ‘on the sidelines’. Just like at any big conference, the real value of UNGA isn’t really the main, headline-grabbing events but the fact that the busiest people in the world are all in the same place for 36 hours or so.

Elsewhere, my co-founder Helen Zhang has been bouncing around the many tech-focused UNGA side events this week. I’ve distilled the main themes of those sessions (as told to me by Helen over a few wines) and included a few of my thoughts on the UN’s role in regulating AI.

News

Bibi met “his friend Joe Biden”. The Israeli Prime Minister’s use of the word “friend” is generous there, but he knows his audience. Israel’s openness to normalisation with the Saudis was the key takeaway of the meeting, with Netanyahu saying, “I think that under your leadership, Mr. President [Biden], we can forge a historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia”. Despite being semi-shunned by Biden this week, it seems Netanyahu will visit the White House for further talks before the end of the year. (The Wall Street Journal)

“He is doing the wrong thing.” That’s how Al Gore described UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s decision to roll back his government’s green commitments, including delaying a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars. Announcing these measures on the same day as the ‘Climate Ambition Summit’ is as clear a political signal as there is, which I suspect also explains Sunak’s absence from UNGA this year. Sunak also confirmed he will attend COP28 in Dubai, where a more cynical commentator might suggest he’ll be warmly welcomed. (BBC)

Get serious, or get out. The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, was the only US official to speak at the UN’s ‘Climate Ambition Summit’ yesterday as officials from the world’s two largest polluters, China and the US, were not invited to participate. Chilean President Gabriel Boric called out companies as well as countries: “We have to react to the greenwashing that major businesses are undertaking. They continue with that greenwashing, and they’re stepping it up, and in some cases, their greenwashing efforts are supported by countries.” COP28 in November really will be interesting. (The Guardian).

The last thing Ukraine needs. Hours after giving Ukraine strong support in his speech, Polish President Andrzej Duda told Polish journalists, “Ukraine is behaving like a drowning person clinging to anything available. A drowning person is extremely dangerous, capable of pulling you down to the depths . . .”. Poland holds its parliamentary election on 15 October, so Duda’s comments were probably designed for a domestic Polish-speaking audience rather than a signal of a broader shift in foreign policy. Still, President Zelensky needs to watch this relationship very carefully. (Financial Times)

Cut it out, children. Unnamed sources say the White House told the US Ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emmanuel, to stop provoking Chinese leaders after he tweeted last week, “President Xi’s cabinet lineup is now resembling Agatha Christie’s novel And Then There Were None.” Quietly leaking a rebuke from ‘unnamed sources’ on Biden’s busiest day at UNGA when he knows the story will get buried is basically Biden saying, “Listen, Rahm, on the record? Stop it, behave yourself… Off the record? Utterly hilarious, don’t stop!” (NBC)

The geopolitics of AI

The geopolitics of AI - same old story

Panellists at the ‘Geopolitics of AI’ event hosted by Goldman Sachs and the Atlantic Council yesterday agreed that very few states will have the money or the technological know-how to compete for AI leadership. That means, despite AI ostensibly being a ‘geography-agnostic’ technology, the race to develop and subsequently regulate AI will look a lot like the races to develop and regulate tangible goods like land, resources, and food did in the past.

That means that, yet again, wealthy, powerful nations will likely dominate the development and implementation of AI with little regard for how it will affect the rest of the world.

Competition between the US and China is only just beginning

The race for AI supremacy is adding to the increasingly bitter rivalry between the US and China. The US has imposed export controls on crucial AI components including high-performance GPU chips, while China has responded with export restrictions on materials used for chip production.

Several analysts highlighted China’s challenge in controlling Large Language Models (LLM - think ChatGPT). But that won’t just be a challenge for China - any political regime predicated on controlling content will have to grapple with AI.

Might China open up its own politically controllable LLM (Ernie) for broader adoption?

Europe’s choice

Europe is falling behind China and the US when it comes to creating global tech companies. Rather than pick between China and US models for AI development, the European approach so far has been to make both countries’ AI companies change the way they operate in Europe.

One AI industry expert thought that approach was unsustainable and Europe would eventually need to choose a side. But Europe is not a monolith; if that happens, we should expect different European countries to have different views.

For example, older EU members like France and Germany will likely place a premium on their tech independence and avoid picking a side. At the same time, newer countries, especially those with recent experience of authoritarianism, may lean toward a US-led model of AI development.

Could India be a player?

There’s no reason India can’t develop its own AI development and regulation model. It possesses all the inputs: significant intellectual resources, an innovation-friendly environment, abundant tech talent, and relatively strong institutions.

An Indian-designed AI platform could also find popularity in like-minded markets in the Global South that want to break the dominance of the US tech industry but aren’t exactly thrilled by the idea of AI that’s controlled by Beijing.

The UN is pushing for a role in regulating AI…

Back in July, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres proposed creating a UN agency to regulate AI, “similar to agencies overseeing aviation, climate, and nuclear energy”.

During a Microsoft-hosted event called “Collaboration in the age of AI” with former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday, geopolitical consultant Ian Bremmer seemed to back the idea, saying, “not only can the UN regulate AI, but the UN is uniquely placed to be a powerful moderating force on how the technology develops.”

… but should it?

Over multiple events with varied speakers, it was noteworthy how consistently commentators advocated for the UN to regulate and enforce AI. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised - one Western diplomat warned me last week that UNGA was “just one giant mutual appreciation society”.

Nevertheless, I have concerns.

Firstly, AI technology is developing faster than most of us outside the tech industry can comprehend. How can the UN - an organisation that multiple leaders have explicitly criticised this week for being sclerotic and representative of a bygone world - be expected to meaningfully regulate AI?

Secondly, I am instinctively wary of private sector CEOs openly calling for regulation as the founders of almost every significant AI company have done. I would have liked more discussion about the risks of regulatory capture that flow from letting private companies design AI regulations, or as my grandmother would have put it, “should we really be putting the foxes in charge of the hen house?”.

Quote of the day

Intrigue team member Morgan Perry attended an event on Tuesday night somewhat verbosely called ‘From Holding the Line to a Robust International Response to the Atrocities against the Uyghurs’, co-hosted by Amnesty International, Atlantic Council and Human Rights Watch.

In Monday’s newsletter, I noted that the Chinese Embassy wrote a letter urging all diplomats at the UN to avoid the event because the host organisations were “notoriously anti-China… obsessed with fabricating lies and spreading malicious disinformation.”

Sophie Richardson, China Director at Human Rights Watch, addressed the Chinese Embassy’s letter during the event, and I think she made several interesting points:

Today’s intriguing events

• It’s nearing the end of the week, and speeches are wrapping up. Chinese Vice President Han Zheng will deliver China’s remarks. President of the European Council, Charles Michel, is expected to highlight a need for multilateralism in his remarks. I’m also interested to hear Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s speech, given the focus on Israel-Saudi normalisation this week.

• Global Africa Business Initiative (GABI): Recognition of Africa’s role in the global economy has finally come, and GABI intends to emphasise the power of the African private market. With an estimated $3 trillion market opportunity, businesses will want to keep a keen eye on the continent.

• Governing the Planetary Emergency: This roundtable held by the Climate Governance Commission will combine diplomatic and civil attendees to discuss the importance of climate leadership. It will be chaired by former Irish president Mary Robinson, and Ecuador’s Maria Fernanda Espinosa, President of the 73rd General Assembly (2018-19).

• Nuclear Power and a Just Transition from Fossil Fuels: This symposium is a little more casual than other events and sets out to educate people on the uses of nuclear power in green energy and challenge misconceptions.

Geolocator: Uh… where am I?

You’ve woken up in a hotel room but you’re still a wee bit groggy from the jet lag. So you rip open the curtains to remind yourself where you’ve landed. Can you figure it out just from the above hotel view?

Hint: One of the four UN Secretariat offices is located here.

See you tomorrow for our final (😭) day in New York!

Answer: Uhuru Park, Nairobi, Kenya.