We need a global conference on values

We need a Global Conference on Values. We need it yesterday. Tomorrow may be too late. Explicitly, we need a conference that establishes three priorities.

1. The need for a modification of nationalism to the point that nations can no longer unilaterally inflict violence. We need to move toward the rejection of violence as a virtuous means of achieving ends.

Massive changes needed ... yesterday

2. We need a binding commitment to the concept of basic income that recognizes that the distribution of power and means is a human choice and that right demands there be a floor for every living person beneath which there can be no descent.

3. We need to establish a time table to achieve total freedom of movement anywhere in the world. The true criminality of the world results from the lack of freedom to move freely without fear of danger or reprisal.

First things first

If you have spent key portions of your life struggling in international organizations, as I have, you know that I am whistling in the wings. But it is also true that without ideas the world atrophies. This is not a time for atrophy. Confronting violence is the priority. Creating a global taboo on lethal harm and hurt is the beginning of the change that we need.

So you can read the article above published this very day -- a newsworthy recognition that artificial intelligence is on track to join all manner of technical things over which we the people have had and continue to have minimal control. The decline of democracy is due not merely to the rise of dictatorial leaders and their followings but also to our tolerance for anything new that could turn a dollar, including AI.

Violence is the root of most evil

But there will be no progress on AI until all the nations who have their hand on the controls agree to consider what I have laid out.

Violence accounts for the most evil -- both as cause and effect. For nations to accept it is not an adequate justification for their power. It enables dictatorial controls. It is anti-democratic.

Conservatives who think otherwise are committed to the evils of exclusion which is a few steps removed from inflicting harm and violence.

Global conferences have spurred progress

AI is coming inexorably; I am sure that if reason prevails AI will counsel nonviolence. It will certainly change work from hard labor to privileged attainment.

But if AI is operating under control of violence-prone countries the prospects are bleak indeed.