ProHuman Institutions

ProHuman: Governing the Global AI Revolution

The episode explores the parallels between nuclear governance and the emerging need for international AI regulation. Featuring insights from

Key takeaways

• Beatrice Fihn uses nuclear technology as a primary analogy for AI due to their shared dual-use nature.
• Julia Morse identifies a 'weak regime complex' in AI governance, characterized by a lack of binding enforcement and reliance on voluntary commitments.
• The discussion proposes the IAEA model (intrusive verification) and the ICAO model (market access through certification) as potential frameworks for AI regulation.
• A significant structural obstacle to AI cooperation is the geopolitical rivalry between the U.S. and China, which control 90% of global compute power.
• The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) serves as a model for a hybrid approach that uses technical standards and market pressure without being strictly legally binding.

Main topics

• Nuclear non-proliferation analogies
• AI governance institutions
• Geopolitical competition in AI

Notable quotes

How do you govern a technology powerful enough to threaten civilization itself?

Conclusion

The episode underscores the necessity of building proactive, multi-lay

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) This treaty is not the work of any one country, but is in fact the product of all nations which shared our concerns over the danger of nuclear proliferation. Speaker 2 (0:10) On July 1st, 1968, after years of difficult negotiations, allies and their adversaries joined together to confront humanity's most dangerous invention. The result was a treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, better known as the NPT. Speaker 1 (0:32) The very fact that the treaty has been commanded by the overwhelming majority of United Nations members and is going to be signed by a great number of states is a convincing proof of their capability to find mutually acceptable solutions of most vital. and most complicated international problems. Speaker 2 (0:54) This global agreement had once seemed unlikely. Just six years earlier, the United States and Soviet Union came dangerously close to nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Cold War was escalating. Nuclear technology was spreading. Many experts feared that if nothing changed, dozens of countries would acquire nuclear weapons. Five states already had them. The question facing world leaders was clear. How do you govern a technology powerful enough to threaten civilization itself? And the general consensus, even amongst the nuclear-armed states, was that more nuclear weapons is worse. Beatrice Finn is the director of Lex International and a senior fellow at the United Nations Institute. for disarmament research. So Speaker 5 (1:50) the agreement was that nuclear weapons are dangerous and they should be Speaker 2 (1:55) eliminated. Speaker 2 (1:58) In the late 1950s, countries came together to establish the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, an independent international body designed to promote peaceful nuclear energy and nonproliferation. Together, the IAEA and the NPT became the foundation for today's nuclear governance, a system that still shapes international security nearly 70 years later. Speaker 5 (2:27) So it's actually been an extremely successful thing. Most Speaker 2 (2:30) countries committed to not have nuclear weapons, and then they actually never developed nuclear weapons. But nuclear governance has never been perfect. For example, the Non-Proliferation Treaty did not ban nuclear weapons outright. It was more of a compromise. Countries without nuclear weapons agreed not to develop them, while the five countries that already had them committed to pursue disarmament. But that didn't happen. Speaker 5 (2:57) One of the key challenges was really this promise from the nuclear arms states that they would disarm. And they've been stringing the whole world along in this kind of five-year cycle. So every fifth year, the states that are members of the NPT, they meet. And it's sort of the same dance every time. Speaker 5 (3:21) Like the nuclear arms states say, well, right now is a really, really bad time. But just wait, next time we're going to do it, I promise. Just don't make a fuss and stay in this treaty and fulfill your obligations. And we promise we'll come next time with something more. And then it keeps going. Like, there will never be a right time for the nuclear arms states to get rid of their addiction to nuclear weapons. For Speaker 2 (3:41) decades, the non-nuclear arms states in the treaty remained patient. Speaker 5 (3:46) For a lot of countries, they had this hope that somehow the nuclear arms states, if we just asked them enough and nagged them and said, pretty please, do something, they would do it. And then I think that there was a moment where governments saw the results of the landmines treaty and the cluster munitions, how much it impacted even the countries outside the treaty and thought, hey, maybe we should try Speaker 2 (4:09) that. The treaties banning landmines and cluster munitions have been signed by more than 100 countries. And even the countries that didn't sign started reducing their stockpiles. There are also successful treaties banning chemical and biological weapons. When the idea was first floated to ban nuclear weapons, Finn was working for an organization that was a member of ICANN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Speaker 5 (4:40) There was a few people in this campaign who said, we had this crazy idea, we're going to take inspiration from the Bioweapons Convention and Chemical Weapons Convention, but also from the landmines and the cluster munitions, and we're going to do this kind of a ban treaty, and it's going to work even if the nuclear arm states are not on board. And I thought it was completely crazy. I was like, oh, it will never work. Like, you can't do that. There's no point of having a treaty without the nuclear arm states. But Speaker 2 (5:05) Finn says the more she got involved, the more she realized... International law isn't just about hard law. It's a social process. In Speaker 5 (5:16) order to really get to nuclear disarmament, we need to make it unacceptable. This is something we can do even without the nuclear arms states on board, and it's something that the rest of the world can do to help make nuclear disarmament happening. Instead of just sitting passively, you know, hopefully nobody launches them. Speaker 2 (5:33) In 2014, Finn was appointed executive director of ICANN. And three years later, the UN adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It is the first legally binding international ban on the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, as well as a ban on their possession and development. Speaker 5 (5:57) It was a real challenge to get this treaty because you have to get people to believe that they have some sort of agency and power on an issue where you feel really powerless. And I think a lot of people can reason with that on climate change, on other issues, on AI, obviously. It feels like the world is moving so fast and there's a couple of dudes somewhere in power that makes all the decisions and what can I do? So I think that that was a real challenge to try to flip people's perspective around. Not look at maybe almost the end goal, like I have to fix all these problems or I have to convince Trump or Putin or Xi to do something, but more looking at themselves, like, OK, what can I do in this situation? We focus so much on the hardest actors, right? Whereas we need to start focusing on like, how do we move our own base and our own communities and our own networks and start creating momentum? As Speaker 2 (6:51) of July 2026, 100 countries have joined the treaty. Though none are nuclear-armed states. I'm Speaker 5 (6:58) not going to hide away from the fact that it can feel really hopeless sometimes, because at the end of the day, you do need to convince everyone. But at the same time, just standing still and waiting for that to happen, it doesn't create a lot of leverage for yourself either. You just reduce your own power and agency. So what kind of leverage do we have, and how do we throw that power around a little bit? Speaker 2 (7:21) In 2017, the same year the UN adopted the ban on nuclear weapons, ICANN was recognized on the world stage. Speaker 5 (7:30) Today it is my great honor to accept the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the thousands of inspirational people who make up the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons. Speaker 2 (7:47) Nuclear governance continues to be a story of incremental progress, of building institutions, setting standards, making agreements, and convincing others that what seems impossible is actually possible if we come together. Today, world leaders are once again asking the question, how do we govern a technology powerful enough to threaten civilization itself. Beatrice Finn has thought a lot about this question. Speaker 5 (8:21) I mean, I think we can do amazing things with AI. I'm not against AI. I think we can do some incredible things with it. But we need to hang on to our humanity in this as well and value human life over speed. Speaker 2 (8:35) Finn says nuclear technology can be a useful analogy for artificial intelligence because they are both dual use. Just Speaker 5 (8:44) like all technical innovation, right? I think Alfred Nobel, right? He invented dynamite. You can use that for construction, but you can also use it to blow people up. And same thing with splitting the atom, which was a huge scientific accomplishment. And then you can weaponize it and make some of the most horrific weapons you can imagine. And same thing with AI. You can use it for really good things, and then you can use it for really, really bad things. Speaker 2 (9:10) If we get better at regulating the downsides, Finn says, we can really lean into the useful parts of technology. I mean, these things should be working for us, not us for them. Speaker 2 (9:25) Welcome to ProHuman, Governing the Global AI Revolution, a podcast from Foreign Policy and the Future of Life Institute. I'm senior producer and presenter, Ibi Caputo. Today's episode, ProHuman Institutions. We're discussing the landscape of international institutions that address global AI governance and what new ways of thinking are on the horizon. Our featured host today is Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and also former UN