The Future of Artificial Intelligence Governance and International Politics

Amidst a period of intensifying geopolitical competition, the governance of artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a defining question for the future of international security, prosperity, and cooperation. The United States, People’s Republic of China, and other powers are rapidly advancing AI capabilities across the civilian, commercial, and military domains. In particular, the pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)—a model that could be equivalent to or better than human experts across a broad range of tasks and has the ability to improve itself—adds further urgency, raising fundamental questions about global stability. Overall, the rapid development and deployment of AI systems—from generative models to autonomous platforms—is raising difficult trade-offs between innovation and safety, as well as competition and cooperation.

To examine these dynamics, Perry World House, the University of Pennsylvania’s hub for global affairs, convened a conference on October 6-7, 2025, with experts, scholars, and policymakers on AI technology, international relations, and national security. This event built on previous efforts by PWH as part of its Emerging Technologies and Global Politics Project, including prior conferences on artificial intelligence and global security, a Penn-wide conference on AI policy, the Democracy and Emergent Technology series in cooperation with the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy, and recent academic collaborations between PWH and the RAND Corporation. Evidence of the impact of these policy efforts includes the Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy, which emerged out of conversations from PWH’s research on emerging technologies.

This workshop is made possible in part by Carnegie Corporation of New York.