Center for Global Agenda: 77th UN General Assembly, Science Summit Statement 6 (Risks)

NEW YORK - Sept. 5, 2022 - PRLog -- This position statement is part of a series of statements from the Center for Global Agenda (CGA) at Unbuilt Labs leading up to the 77th UN General Assembly Science Summit (SSUNGA77) to offer actionable recommendations. CGA Co-Directors Marvin Cheung and Marguerite Van Cook will be presenting at and engaging both fellow presenters as well as the general public at the SSUNGA77 on these recommendations.

Marvin Cheung, Center for Global Agenda at Unbuilt Labs, Co-Director, on risks:

At a global level, we examine risks based on their impact to the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Global Public Goods (GPGs). In the 2021 Our Common Agenda authored by the UN Secretary-General, GPGs identified includes global health, information, global economy, healthy planet, science, peace, digital, and more.

In the 2021 Our Common Agenda, Chapter 1: A Scenario of Breakdown and Perpetual Crisis, the Secretary-General has flagged out risks including deadly pandemics, uninhabitable planet, and destabilizing inequalities.

Additional global risks has been identified by The Millennium Project (TMP). In 2021, I offered my support to the Proposal to Create a United Nations Office on Strategic Threats co-authored by TMP as signatory #30 representing Unbuilt Labs in my capacity as a Board Member together with 200 colleagues internationally, including internet pioneer vint cerf, Nobel Laureate Oscar Arias as well as Professors from universities such as Georgetown University and Stanford University. The proposal identified long-term existential risks such as advanced global warming, solar radiation, malicious nanotechnology, nuclear incidents, pandemics, and other high-risk events that pose a severe challenge to shared peace and prosperity for all.

We endorse the view expressed by Jerome Glenn, Co-Founder and CEO of The Millennium Project in his April 2022 expert statement during CGA's global stakeholder consultation process. Glenn, who has been meeting with Ayaka Suzuki, Director of the Strategic Planning and Monitoring Unit in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General (EOSG) under the recommendation of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, has reiterated the importance of understanding the risk of artificial general intelligence.

The Center for Global Agenda (CGA) at Unbuilt Labs also acknowledges the Real-Time Delphi (RTD) Study conducted by The Millennium Project while working with the Executive Office of the UN Secretary-General, which was published in September 2022. In particular, we recognize the importance of global futures research in aforementioned risk areas and recommend investing in funds, efforts, and partnerships, but we caution against a global collective intelligence system which may itself pose an unjustifiable risk to future generations.

For more information please see the Center for Global Agenda (CGA) at Unbuilt Labs website: https://unbuiltlabs.com/cga or visit our Pressroom for past announcements statements: https://unbuiltlabs.com/pressroom