As we mark Ladies’s Historical past Month, it’s clear that the way forward for governance—whether or not in diplomacy or synthetic intelligence—can’t be constructed with out ladies on the heart. AI is reshaping economies, governance, and public providers at an unprecedented tempo, and cities are more and more stepping as much as form the worldwide insurance policies that may decide how these applied sciences impression individuals’s lives. The query isn’t whether or not AI will change our societies—it already is. The actual query is: Who will get to determine how?
I’ve spent practically a decade on the NYC Mayor’s Workplace for Worldwide Affairs, assembly with leaders from throughout the globe—heads of state, diplomats, mayors, civil society, and innovators—usually simply steps from the United Nations. These rooms pulse with urgency, the place cities forge solutions to urgent challenges. Cities like New York, Freetown, and Barcelona should not simply proving this—they’re sounding a clarion name for the world to behave.
Synthetic intelligence is now not a whisper of the long run; it’s a power reshaping our current, set so as to add 13 trillion {dollars} to the worldwide economic system by 2030. It dictates who will get employed, how cities operate, and whether or not healthcare saves lives. But its flaws minimize deep. Synthetic intelligence-driven hiring instruments exclude ladies at alarming charges. Healthcare diagnostics additionally miss ladies’s signs, risking tragedy additional emphasizing the necessity for variety within the groups designing these instruments. These should not glitches; they replicate a stark reality—ladies maintain solely 22% of AI expertise globally and this quantity shrinks additional at senior ranges, with ladies solely occupying lower than 14% of senior government roles in AI. With out ladies on the desk, synthetic intelligence doesn’t simply stumble—it betrays half the world. Cities, the place concepts flip to motion, can rewrite this narrative.
Subnational diplomacy fuels this energy. Cities are taking over massive challenges resembling local weather change and are taking motion that typically outpaces their nationwide counterparts. As Deputy Commissioner and Chief of Workers, I symbolize New York Metropolis’s voice to world coverage discussions and networks, together with on the United Nations and City 20, shaping insurance policies for these synthetic intelligence touches each day. Cities are agile, sensible, and deeply related to the wants of their communities. That’s the reason they’re on the forefront of designing AI insurance policies that prioritize equity, transparency, and accountability.
New York meets this problem head-on. Our Synthetic Intelligence Motion Plan ensures that AI is deployed responsibly and equitably. However AI governance is only one a part of a broader dedication to fairness. Via NYC Ladies Ahead, we’re increasing alternatives for girls in management and the workforce, whereas our newly signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with UN Ladies underscores our metropolis’s function in advancing gender fairness on a worldwide scale. These efforts acknowledge a basic reality: When insurance policies are designed inclusively, they produce higher outcomes for everybody.
We aren’t alone on this work. Cities all over the world are exhibiting that subnational management can drive systemic change. Freetown, below Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, has prioritized gender-inclusive governance, guaranteeing that girls have a voice in financial and political decision-making. Barcelona, a frontrunner in digital rights, has constructed AI insurance policies that heart transparency and public accountability, guaranteeing that rising applied sciences serve individuals.
There’s a stark distinction between cities which can be getting this proper and programs which can be falling behind. When AI insurance policies are developed with out transparency, they erode public belief. When decision-making areas exclude ladies and different marginalized voices, insurance policies fail to replicate the wants of these they impression most. When expertise is handled as an remoted difficulty reasonably than a governance problem, societies turn into reactive as an alternative of proactive in addressing its dangers and alternatives.
Throughout Ladies’s Historical past Month, the message is evident: The governance of AI, diplomacy, and world coverage have to be inclusive. Cities are already main the way in which. Now, it’s time for the remainder of the world to do the identical.
