Our Shocking AI Predicament

A declared, unrestrained race to Superintelligence is bringing humanity to a three-way fork: catastrophic loss of control over AI, durable global authoritarian capture by a few, or humanity's triumph through timely, safe, and fair AI governance.

Middle outcomes are highly unlikely.

Given the concentration of AI power, Xi’s consistent calls for global governance of AI, and the plausibility of very short timelines to ASI — like it or not, humanity’s future overwhelmingly depends on Trump becoming persuaded to co-lead with Xi a bold, timely and proper global AI treaty — realizing a vision President Truman proposed to the UN on the very day Trump was born.

What Have We Done So Far

Over 12 months, we have been executing a targeted persuasion campaign aimed at key potential influencers of Trump's AI policy, with the purpose of swaying him Trump to co-lead with Xi such a treaty — based on purely pragmatic terms—within an opening political window. Our work consists of two main activities:

(1) Develop an evolving 356-page Strategic Memo — a treasure trove of deeply researched "persuasion profiles" of each key potential influencer of Trump's AI policy (their interests, philosophies, psychology, and key AI predictions), plus detailed analysis of treaty-making pathways, enforcement mechanisms, and convergence scenarios. Targeted influencers include, in order of strategic value and alignment, Conservative humanists (Vance, Bannon, Gabbard), techno-humanists (Suleyman, Hassabis, Amodei, Altman, Sutskever), media influencers (Carlson, Rogan), trans/post-humanists (Musk, Sacks, Thiel), and Pope Leo XIV.

(2) Engaged in an ongoing direct one-to-one persuasion campaign — via periodic tours across DC, the Bay Area, Rome/Vatican, and beyond — engaging with potential introducers to those influencers and, hopefully soon, those influencers themselves. EWe tablished 85+ pathway contacts toward influencers in SF and DC, held group private dinners in SF and DC, engaged 23+ AI lab officials directly and 28+ DC AI professionals, and opened direct pathways to 2 targeted influencers. (See 2025 Achievements)

Roadmap 2026

(1) deepen our direct engagements with influencers and key introducers and

(2) Leverage the alignment of Vance and Pope Leo XIV on AI safety governance and ethics to foster a convergence of those influencers and their advisors —​ via multiple private meetings in Rome leading up to a major event on June 4-5th, 2026, at Palazzo Falletti, and then in DC.

Who We Are

The Coalition comprises 10 international NGOs and 40+ exceptional advisors — including formerly at the UN, National Security Agency, World Economic Forum, UBS, Yale, and Princeton — plus 24 contributors to the Strategic Memo. Launched in July 2024, seed-funded by Jaan Tallinn's Survival and Flourishing Fund.

An Opening Window of Feasibility

Xi has repeatedly called for global AI governance. Four Trump-Xi summits are planned for 2026, starting in April. Trump's approval ratings are at their lowest at 35-40%. By now, 63% of US voters believe it's likely that "humans won't be able to control it anymore".

Furthermore, 53% of US voters believe it's somewhat or very likely that "AI will destroy humanity". Not only that, but 77% of all US voters support a strong international AI treaty. Most relevant perhaps, most of key Trump’s AI policy influencers are increasingly concerned or calling for a treaty.

Not Just Any Treaty

But not just any treaty. Many AI leaders increasingly think that an ASI gamble may be less risky than a treaty that turns into an authoritarian dystopia or completely locks away the astounding prospects of flourishing for humans and sentient beings.

Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that an AI treaty will consistently prevent ASI and serious misuse, lessen concentration of power and wealth worldwide, and sustainably leave room for flourishing, autonomy, and innovation under the guiding principles of an open but cautious humanism.

In our memo (pp. 124-139), we detail how and why a US-China-led treaty - while led by two "strong executive" leaders and requiring extensive surveillance to reliably prevent ASI - can be made to substantially reduce concentration of power and is most likely to do so given certain inherent foreseeable dynamics.

The Strategy: Humanist AI Alliance, Vance and the Pope

The Vatican has warned that humanity risks being locked into what Pope Leo XIV calls a "technocratic paradigm" — where technological logic supersedes human values and agency. Any treaty worth its name must do more than distribute AI's benefits fairly; it must actively preserve and restore human agency in the face of systems designed to maximize engagement, extract data, and automate decisions that should remain human.

The Rome Convening of June 2026 will draw on the expertise of leading Vatican AI scholars — including those shaping the Church's positions through the Pontifical AI Commission, the Dicastery for Culture and Education's AI Research Group, and the Rome Call ecosystem — alongside AI lab executives, policy professionals, and security experts.

Pope Leo XIV has dedicated his papacy to guiding the AI revolution, his main AI advisor Benanti gathered top AI scientists around a call for a treaty for safe and humanist AI. When asked about AI extinction risks by the New York Times, JD Vance stated that he had read the AI 2027 Report and followed up by stating, “The American government is not equipped to provide moral leadership .... I think the Church is. This is the sort of thing the Church is very good at.”

Given the prevalence of secular or Judeo-Christian humanism among MAGA opinion leaders, US voters, and most of the key potential influencers of Trump's AI policy — those initiatives by the Vatican and statements by Vance could become the spark of a behind-the-scenes humanist AI alliance among a critical mass of those influencers.

Quite revealing of the enormous strategic potential of such an alliance, in the fact that JD Vance's papal deference was starkly opposed as a dangerous "Caesar-Papist fusion" by Peter Thiel, Vance's mentor and arguably the main driver of Trump's current accelerationist and de-facto post-humanist AI policies.

Irresistible to Trump

The moral case for a treaty is self-evident. The political case must be made in the language of those with the power to act.

Under a strikingly similar political context, another highly pragmatic US president, Harry Truman, presented to the UN — on the very day Trump was born on June 14th, 1946 — what is still by far history’s boldest treaty proposal for nuclear weapons and energy.

Trump has a chance to secure and future-proof US economic leadership in an era of safe-AI abundance, prevent Chinese dominance, and avoid immense risks for his own life and his family's, and achieve unparalleled prestige and grandeur.

Trump has an opportunity to fulfill his destiny, succeed where Truman failed, and leave a legacy "worth 100 Nobel Peace Prizes" that will be widely appreciated around the globe as he retires in 2029.

A Treaty-Making Process That Can Succeed

Should such an alliance succeed in convincing Trump, negotiation would start during one of his four 2026 meetings with Xi, starting this April. At this stage, the Vatican's and the alliance’s role would give way to a key role for Singapore, in its unique current neutral China/US position, and its president's uniquely forceful statements about global AI coordination. 

PHASE 1. In our vision, Trump and Xi should start off by fast-tracking a temporary, emergency bilateral treaty focused on transparency for civilian and military frontier AI and the most egregious and accessible AI risks (e.g. biological).
Concurrently, they should launch a "global Apollo Program" to jointly build, at wartime speed, a mutually-trusted socio-technical infrastructure for ultra-high-bandwidth diplomatic communications and trustworthy treaty enforcement mechanisms — while ensuring accountability, subsidiarity, and checks and balances.

PHASE 2. Midway through Phase 1, the US and China will negotiate with most middle powers the scope and rule of a global treaty-making process for AI based on the constitutional convention model. This model - inspired by the 1787 US Constitutional Convention, as suggested by Sam Altman in 2023 — is the only one that can prevent the fatal use of the veto, succeed in delivering an extremely wide-scoped and fair treaty in short and predictable times, and ensure resilient subsidiarity terms. The model will be amended to be realist: voting will initially be weighted by GDP to secure and future-proof US and China leadership, while still preventing a global duopoly.

Substantial functional roles should be granted to world religious traditions, security agencies, top AI labs, independent AI scientists, and citizens assemblies — to ensure the necessary moral authority, scientific knowledge, operational expertise, and democratic legitimacy the scope of this treaty demands.

Towards a Humanist AI Alliance

In the next 6 months, through closed-door meetings we’ll host in Rome,we’ll contribute to the emergence of such an alliance, which will develop a successful pitch for Trump that will concurrently (1) demonstrate vast practical benefits for Trump and US voters and also (2) minimum ethical principles underlying the scope and methods of a global AI treaty-making process.

The alliance's ethical framework will be developed through an open, non-doctrinal, dialectical approach — grounded in human dignity while engaging in honest dialogue with moderate transhumanist aspirations for human flourishing through technology — designed to win the hearts of influential Silicon Valley techno-optimist humanists and outcompete the growing hardcore accelerationist post-humanist camp.

Building on the Vatican's Rome Call, these principles will be conceived from the start to integrate the perspectives of other key global stakeholders: Chinese leadership, middle powers, and most of humanity during the treaty-making process. (See 2026 Roadmap)

Reaching Influencers and Fostering their Convergence

Ensuring influencers will give proper attention to our proposal and Strategic Memo, and develop enough convergence to form an (informal) alliance will rely on:

• Introductions by our wide network advisors, contributors, members, and partners of the coalition and the Trustless Computing Association, most of whom are located in DC or Silicon Valley.

• Introductions by 85+ contacts we made during our October persuasion Tour in DC and SF (via 1-to-1 and group dinners) in AI labs policy and strategy executives and DC AI/security think tanks.

• Small ad-hoc private events that we’ll host in Rome (and DC later in the year), where our HQs are and where the Vatican has a very active AI ethics and governance.

Operation Capacity & Funding

We have achieved all of the above on a dime. Now we need to switch gears. If we can make 2-3 AI-skilled junior hires, we can easily transform our 356-page treasure trove of tailored intelligence, and an overflow of open influencer pathways into a highly-tailored, high-bandwidth, targeted persuasion campaign — and successful convergence meetings in Rome and DC — enabling us to 10x our impact in just months.

With only $75,000, we were able to activate 2,100 hours of professional pro-bono work and achieve astounding achievements in 2025. We are now seeking $100,000–$400,000 to move to the next stage (and an urgent $10–30k bridge funding), and looking to diversify our funding sources with some more aligned with our humanist AI focus . Every dollar goes to the mission—no fancy offices, no high staff costs. We operate at ~$7,500/month, a fraction of a typical DC policy NGO. (See Donate or Funding So Far)

Ways You Can Help

• Introductions to the influencers profiled in our Memo or their close advisors;

• Funding to move to the next stage or maintain operations;

• Contributors for the Memo with expertise in AI policy, diplomacy, or access to target networks.

→ For more details, navigate our December 30th, 2025, 356-page Strategic Memo (v2.6).