🏛️ International AI Governance with The Simon Institute

​The Simon Institute for Longterm Governance (SI) is a think tank based in Geneva, Switzerland, fostering effective international cooperation to safely advance transformative AI. SI is well-respected among international organizations and diplomats for its neutral facilitation of international AI governance processes, like the recent Global Digital Compact (GDC). 

​The SI team is visiting the Bay Area and will depart for DC this coming weekend. They would like to connect with friends at the Commons who are interested in / working on relevant topics:

• ​Designing the UN's new International Scientific Panel on AI

• ​Strengthening diplomatic channels between great powers

• ​Ensuring genuine participation from the Global Majority in shaping future AI systems

• ​Navigating these challenges as power shifts from governments to tech companies and geopolitical uncertainty intensifies

• ​Understanding the funding landscape for all this work

​More Detail on What SI is Working On:

​Until September 2025, we're focused on establishing an International Scientific Panel on AI that can rapidly build consensus on emerging capabilities and risks, facilitate evidence-based international dialogue, and has buy-in from both the US and China. In parallel to this priority, we're exploring projects more directly aimed at boosting US-China mediation. 

​The West needs a two-pronged approach to keep authoritarian AI capabilities in check. While export controls and other restrictive measures help, a lack of foreign service capacity, especially in the US, is generating misunderstandings among rivals and allies alike. To reduce fear, doubt, and uncertainty, the US government’s objectives would be well served by doing more to explain its actions – using established norms and communication channels. Yet, American diplomacy has declined below the levels of the 1950s. 

​The Simon Institute is helping to fill this gap by boosting engagement capacity, leveraging our independent position and relationships with governments across the globe. You can read more of our current thinking in this memo on diplomacy for US-China rapprochement on frontier AI.