Global AI Governance

Over the last decade, multi-stakeholder fora (summits, conferences, workshops, platforms, interest groups etc.) on the governance of AI and related technologies have mushroomed. Even those with a focus on international governance have become too numerous to list. Thus, only fora with participation by global IGOs or state representatives from all continents (except Antarctica) will be covered here.

“Governance” is used loosely in this context, as these fora do not have law-making or regulatory authority, it’s more about sharing of best practices and policy ideas.

	World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)	Internet Governance Forum (IGF)	Global Summit on AI for Good
First session	2003	2006	2017
Frequency	Annual	Annual	Annual
Secretariat	ITU	UN DESA	ITU
Host	ITU HQ (Geneva)	Rotating	ITU HQ (Geneva)
Website	https://www.itu.int/net/wsis	https://www.intgovforum.org	https://aiforgood.itu.int
Main focus	ICT for development	Internet-related governance	AI for Good
Main aims	Dialogue	Policy discussions	Facilitating projects

All three tend to have working groups, exhibitions, hackathons and prizes in addition to talks and panel discussions, and they all aim to elicit diverse inputs, including from traditionally under-represented communities. Other related multi-stakeholder fora such as the UN World Data Forum will be added to this page in the future.

As a snapshot impression, the topics and participants of the three events of 2019 will be briefly compared in the following sections.

Comparing the agendas and reports of the three above-mentioned events of 2019, one can see that the breadth of topics is fairly wide and largely overlapping:

Topic	WSIS	IGF	GSAIG
Cybersecurity	✅	✅	?
IoT risks & opportunities	✅	✅	?
Disinformation & manipulation	✅	✅	✅
Online content moderation	?	✅	?
Digital literacy	✅	✅	?
Data protection & privacy	✅	✅	✅
Human rights impacts of AI	✅	✅	?
Accountability for AI harms	✅	✅	?
Online child safety	✅	✅	?
Tech for SDGs	✅	✅	✅
Digital inclusion	✅	✅	?
Tech & Gender aspects	✅	✅	?
Digital economy & automation	✅	✅	?
Human-centric AI	✅	✅	?
HealthTech	✅	✅	✅
EdTech	✅	✅	✅
FinTech	✅	?	?
Smart cities	✅	✅	?
AgriTech & FoodTech	✅	✅	✅

A question mark indicates that no mention of this topic was found in a keyword search of primary sources, but it may still have been discussed. In particular the AI for Good summit does not keep much information on past events online.

Bear in mind that the relative weight of each topic may differ significantly across events and across time. An empirical analysis would be difficult because reports and transcripts of sessions are not equally exhaustive.

Sources and more info:

• WSIS 2019 Highlights & Outcomes
• IGF 2019 Chair’s Summary
• AI for Good 2019 Summit Highlights (archive)¹

Participant statistics are not reported in exactly the same way (e.g. some distinguish between on-site and remote participants and have more data on the former than the latter), but a comparison can still indicate similarities and differences between them. Again, the data is from the events held in 2019 (same sources as for the previous section).

	WSIS	IGF	GSAIG
Participants	3000+	3600+	2300+
- % women	41%	42%	40%
- nationalities	150+	160+	90+
- IOs	18%	4%	?
- governments	30%	18%	?
- private sector	20%	19%	?
- civil society	15%	42%	?
- academia	17%	?	?
Talks & workshops	300+	200+	80+
Speakers	?	?	370+
UN partners	20+	?	37

Interestingly, the percentage of female participants is nearly the same, whereas in terms of nationalities the WSIS and IGF have reached far higher numbers than GSAIG. A comparison over time could shed light on diversification of these summits and fora, if the data were sufficiently accurate and complete.