A global agency to oversee AI is a tall order

By Ludwig Siegele

International bodies often start small. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), established in 1944, held decades of discussions before it began to set air-traffic rules. In 1952 the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, or CERN, started life in unused offices at the University of Copenhagen. And until 1979 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the world’s nuclear watchdog, was based in a hotel in Vienna.

These three organisations, each embodying a different way to govern a powerful technology, are now the preferred templates for a new global entity. The ICAO is mainly a standards-setter; CERN is a research outfit; the IAEA is a nuclear cop. Over the coming year, the world’s governments are expected to decide what kind of global body they want to regulate another technology: artificial intelligence (AI).