When will nations agree on a shared set of AI safeguards? In their outlook on key milestones in AI governance, Superforecasters expect slow progress toward international coordination. Strategic necessity, technological breakthroughs, and recognition of global risk may increase the speed of cooperation. However, entrenched competitive tensions between countries, bureaucratic inertia, and private-sector pushback suggest that most meaningful coordination efforts will come in the 2040s or 2050s rather than the 2030s.
Across the domains explored in this project, Superforecasters consistently emphasized four themes:
Institutional Drag: Forecasts involving formal agreements, such as a treaty-backed AI regulator or global safety standards, reflect the historical lag in building such institutions. Agencies like the IAEA and OPCW took decades to form after early warnings emerged.
Geopolitical Tension vs Converging Interests: Even amid US-China rivalry, forecasters point to shared incentives such as market stability, chip supply security, and existential risk that could eventually support cooperation.
Existing Models for Joint Efforts: Examples like CERN, EuroHPC, and Atoms for Peace shape expectations for collaborative AI infrastructure. Ideas such as “Chips for Peace” or cross-border regulatory alignment may draw from these models, though not in the near term.
Catalyst Events: A major AI-related incident, whether a system failure or geopolitical misuse, could upend the status quo. Such an event may increase public pressure enough to override resistance and force faster agreement on safeguards.
The data for this report was generated by Good Judgment Inc’s Superforecasters from 11 April 2025 to 13 May 2025.
Superforecasters are generalist forecasters whose consistent accuracy placed them in the top 1-2% of the more than 100,000 forecasters from around the world. Their forecasts and insights for this project are summarized in the reports below.
Click on the individual reports above or download full report (2.5 MB).
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