From confronting climate change and extreme forms of poverty to protracted conflict and the erosion of human rights, effective international cooperation represents both a moral and practical imperative. Given these colossal challenges, the coming together of world leaders in New York at this month’s SDG Summit and next year’s Summit of the Future is both timely and critical. With only 15 percent of the Sustainable Development Goals’ targets on track this decade (and over 500 million people still likely to live in extreme poverty by 2030), achieving success in both summits depends on the identification and pursuit of the deep and varied connections between them.

As AI Systems get rapidly integrated into our daily lives, there is an urgent need to create a governance structure to regulate their deployment and use. The impact of AI on the future of human civilization will potentially be larger than the industrial revolution at the turn of nineteenth century and the information revolution that commenced in the late twentieth century. AI technology is on an exponential trajectory of change and might escape human comprehension and control if safety and human alignment are not built into their design and deployment.