Our world is in a spiral of crises. While conventional threats, such as famine, drought, civil war and genocide, continue to loom over humanity in many parts of the world, the race to assume control of new phenomena that have the potential to change the world – such as novel communications and weapons technologies, artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies – is also gaining pace and posing new threats to our collective wellbeing. Our current "rules-based international order", which was established in the aftermath of World War II to increase global cooperation, generate economic prosperity, prevent wars, and ensure stability, equality and justice is struggling to navigate these complex challenges and falling short of preventing violations of its founding principles. A state of irregularity, which benefits only a handful of powerful countries and interest groups while spelling catastrophe for the masses, is close to becoming the new normal of the global order. Therefore, it is now not a preference but an obligation to make comprehensive reforms to the system to prevent this scenario from becoming reality.

The challenge with AI is that it's only as intelligent as the data we feed it – and if this data is laced with gender, racial, age (...I could go on) bias, then unfortunately this is the lesson AI will take. This is fixable, but we just need to address the core of this issue and find solutions at the same time. As a technologist I have spent years trying to solve problems that make human lives easier, whether that is a robot to get me a Snickers from the vending machine or through giving businesses of all sizes access to the most up to date tech – regardless of the size of their budget.