From Symbolic Consensus to Institutional Architecture

The authors argue that the UN's Global Dialogue on AI risks becoming a symbolic exercise if it focuses solely on high-level declarations. To be effective, the Dialogue must transition into a functional governance body characterized by:

• Prioritized Workstreams: Establishing a limited, clear set of objectives with regionally balanced stewards.
• Reporting Cycles: Implementing a formal, recurring mechanism—modeled after the Universal Periodic Review—to track implementation, identify failures, and provide support.
• Evidence Integration: Creating a formal route for civil society and technical experts to feed empirical evidence directly into policy deliberations.

Capacity-Building as a Sovereignty Imperative

Capacity-building is frequently treated as a secondary developmental issue, but the authors contend it is the essential foundation of AI governance. Without local expertise, countries are forced to outsource lawmaking to foreign consultants and corporate actors. Effective governance requires:

• Institutional Infrastructure: Developing policy observatories, audit pipelines, harm-mapping systems, and language-specific evaluation tools.
• Human Capital: Training a cadre of regulators, judges, procurement officials, and incident responders capable of evaluating frontier models and adjudicating automated decisions.

Integrating Global Majority Expertise

Current AI debates are dominated by commercial and national-security interests from a small number of Northern jurisdictions. The authors argue that the Global Majority holds critical knowledge regarding harms that are often overlooked, such as cultural exclusion, gendered abuse, and the erosion of public trust. Governance must:

• Redefine Risk: Incorporate community-identified harms into risk taxonomies rather than relying solely on frontier lab frameworks.
• Democratize Risk Deliberation: Create a standing, inclusive mechanism to deliberate on catastrophic and existential risks, ensuring these discussions are not dominated by private interests or a handful of wealthy nations.
• Validate Local Knowledge: Commission and cite regional research alongside developer-led work, ensuring that diverse perspectives actually shape final policy conclusions.