The UN Secretary-General António Guterres has just established a High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation to foster a “broader global dialogue on how interdisciplinary and cooperative approaches can help ensure a safe and inclusive digital future for all.” My own interest spans the last five years thinking about how cooperation and governance apply to my field of expertise, AI and emerging technologies.

What does “cooperation” mean in a world where only a small proportion – about 0.004% of the global population – have the knowledge and power to build machines that are intelligent enough to potentially decide who wins on the job market, who can obtain insurance or has the upper-hand in the courtroom, or whose DNA or behavioural patterns will be mined by marketers? Never have we faced a technology like AI – whose design is in the hands of a few, and who are mostly born in societies of abundance, yet a technology powerful enough to shape multifaceted aspects of our lives. This asymmetry of knowledge and power raises significant challenges for global cooperation.