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The Athens Roundtable returns this December

We are delighted to announce the Sixth Edition of our annual flagship event The Athens Roundtable on AI and the Rule of Law, which will be hosted at the OECD Headquarters in Paris and online on December 9.

Organized in partnership with the OECD, the AI & Society Institute, CNNum, Make.org, and the Tech and Global Affairs Innovation Hub of Sciences Po, this edition will address urgent challenges in ensuring the secure, safe, and trustworthy development of advanced AI systems. As an official event leading to France’s AI Action Summit, The Roundtable will contribute to the Summit’s agenda and outcomes.

We invite our global community to join virtually via an interactive livestream from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. CET.

Seeking expert and civil society inputs for the AI Action Summit

The AI Action Summit hosted by France in February 2025 represents a critical opportunity for global dialogue on the governance of artificial intelligence. Our consultation is now open for civil society and experts to contribute their visions and concrete proposals for what could emerge from the Summit. A summary of submissions will be presented during The Athens Roundtable and shared with Summit organizers.

The deadline for early submission is October 14 and the final deadline is November 10, 2024. Our consultation is part of a wider effort to involve civil society, academics, and citizens in Summit planning, through a partnership with the French Presidency, the Tech and Global Affairs Innovation Hub of Sciences Po, the AI & Society Institute, CNNUm, and Make.org.

What’s new and what’s next

Our team has taken part in a number of consequential convenings this year, including the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, the UN Summit of the Future “A Digital Future for All” Action Day in New York, Partnership on AI’s AI Policy Forum in New York, Disinfo Radar‘s DisinfoCon in Berlin, IE University’s Lawtomation in Madrid, the Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum in Taipei, Mozilla Festival in Amsterdam, UNESCO-Eastern Africa sub-Regional Forum on Artificial Intelligence in Nairobi, World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, and the IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence in Yokohama.

Our European AI Governance colleagues have been engaged in the European Commission‘s consultation on the Code of Practice for general-purpose AI providers in the context of the AI Act.

We are delighted that our Global AI Governance Associate Frank Ryan was appointed to the OECD AI Policy Observatory’s AI Compute & Climate Change group of experts.

Members of The Future Society will participate in the following upcoming events:

• World Summit AI in Amsterdam on October 9
• Frontier AI: Challenges & Opportunities in London on October 10

Opportunities to Engage

We believe that civil society participation is crucial for AI governance processes to be successful. That’s why we strongly encourage engagement in current calls for ideas and input, including:

• OECD:Public Consultation on Risk Thresholds for Advanced AI Systems (deadline Oct. 1)
• Paris Peace Forum: Call for AI Projects for the French AI Action Summit (deadline Oct. 7)
• Partnership on AI: Stakeholder Engagement for Responsible AI

Know of other opportunities?

Resource alert

We contributed to Partnership on AI’s risk mitigation strategies for the open foundation model value chain, which identify interventions for the range of actors involved in building and operationalizing AI systems.

We are hiring

Chief Operating Officer (COO): We are seeking an experienced COO to lead operations for our growing team of 18 staff. This executive-level role will take full ownership of a comprehensive portfolio including human resources, finance, administration, systems, and compliance. Deadline: October 23, 2024.

Meet our newest teammates

We have been joined by two new staff members, as well as five visiting analysts. We are pleased that three of our visiting analysts will be remaining onboard as full time staff on our European and Global AI Governance teams.

George Gor
Analyst, Global AI Governance and AI and the Rule of Law

Mai Lynn Miller Nguyen
Head of Communications

Amin Oueslati
Associate, European AI Governance

Support our work

The Future Society is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. Philanthropy is what makes our work possible. Here’s just one reason to donate to us:

We are independent. As an organization that is not beholden to companies or governments, we are well-positioned to work toward AI governance that serves the public interest. Our non-affiliated status enables us to function as a convener and collaborator with a range of stakeholders.

If that reason wasn’t motivating enough, here are nine more.