Berggruen Institute, Minderoo Foundation, and the Center for International Strategy and Security of Tsinghua University Supports the 8th World Peace Forum in Beijing

Nils Gilman

In July 2019, Berggruen Institute partnered with the Australia-based Minderoo Foundation and the Center for International Strategy and Security of Tsinghua University to support the 8th World Peace Forum in Beijing. The theme of this year’s forum was “Stabilizing the World Order: Common Responsibilities, Joint Management, and Shared Benefits,” with a particular focus on Artificial Intelligence and Governance. At the opening ceremony, Wang Qishan, Vice President of China, addressed a global mix of current and former foreign ministers and heads of state attending the forum.

The AI Governance discussion included presentations from current Berggruen Fellow Professor Zeng Yi of the Chinese Academy, as well as Berggruen Institute China Center Director Song Bing. Berggruen Institute Vice President of Programs Nils Gilman chaired a panel discussion on the Impact of AI Technology, which discussed the differing AI development strategies being taken in different countries, and the sorts of new risks and opportunities that AI presents for international relations. Song Bing also chaired a panel addressing the role of international organizations and businesses to mitigate AI risks, as well as emergent policy options and legal frameworks for governing the use AI.

At the Forum, the Berggruen Institute agreed to develop a new project to limit the weaponization of AI. The Berggruen Institute will partner on this project with Madame Fu Ying, Vice Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee of China’s 13th National People’s Congress and Honorary Dean of Institute of International Relations and Chairman of Center for International Strategy and Security of Tsinghua University, and Ryan Hass, former China lead at the U.S. National Security Council and current Brookings Institution Fellow.

composed by Arswain
machine learning consultation by Anna Tskhovrebov
commissioned by the Berggruen Institute
premiered at the Bradbury Building
downtown Los Angeles
april 22, 2022

Human perception of what sounds “beautiful” is necessarily biased and exclusive. If we are to truly expand our hearing apparatus, and thus our notion of beauty, we must not only shed preconceived sonic associations but also invite creative participation from beings non-human and non-living. We must also begin to cede creative control away from ourselves and toward such beings by encouraging them to exercise their own standards of beauty and collaborate with each other.

Movement I: Alarm Call
‘Alarm Call’ is a long-form composition and sound collage that juxtaposes, combines, and manipulates alarm calls from various human, non-human, and non-living beings. Evolutionary biologists understand the alarm call to be an altruistic behavior between species, who, by warning others of danger, place themselves by instinct in a broader system of belonging. The piece poses the question: how might we hear better to broaden and enhance our sense of belonging in the universe? Might we behave more altruistically if we better heed the calls of – and call out to – non-human beings?

Using granular synthesis, biofeedback, and algorithmic modulation, I fold the human alarm call – the siren – into non-human alarm calls, generating novel “inter-being” sonic collaborations with increasing sophistication and complexity. 

Movement II: A.I.-Truism
A synthesizer piece co-written with an AI in the style of Vangelis’s Blade Runner score, to pay homage to the space of the Bradbury Building.

Movement III: Alarmism
A machine learning model “learns” A.I.Truism and recreates Alarm Call, generating an original fusion of the two.

Movement IV: A.I. Call
A machine learning model “learns” Alarm Call and recreates A.I.Truism, generating an original fusion of the two.

RAVE (IRCAM 2021) https://github.com/acids-ircam/RAVE