Peace in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Seventy years of person to person work, and a technology that could go either way.
In June 2026 the historian Rutger Bregman published an essay and video essay under the title "An Inconvenient Truth About AI". His argument, addressed mainly to progressive readers, is that artificial intelligence is advancing faster than most commentators are willing to admit, and that decisions about safety, transparency and who benefits are being taken while the public looks the other way. The piece has been widely read and firmly contested.
PTPI takes no position in that political argument. We do take a position on what it asks of us.
Tools change. Purpose does not.
Technology has always shaped how this organisation works. Letters gave way to telephone calls. Telephone calls gave way to affordable air travel, then to email, then to video. Each new tool changed the method. None of them changed the purpose.
Video platforms now carry a large part of our network. They let a chapter leader in one country and a member in another speak in the same hour, at almost no cost. They cannot replace a shared meal, a homestay, or the experience of arriving somewhere unfamiliar and being made welcome. But when distance, cost, conflict or visa restrictions make travel impossible, they keep a friendship alive until the next meeting becomes possible.
The same technologies carry misinformation, impersonation and manufactured outrage just as efficiently. That is not a reason to retreat from them. It is a reason to use them deliberately.
The rules we have written for ourselves
PTPI has written its own rules for this. Our chapter by-laws set three requirements that apply without exception.
- Confidential information and personal data are never entered into public artificial intelligence tools.
- A named person reviews and takes responsibility for every AI-assisted output published in PTPI's name.
- AI-generated or AI-altered material is disclosed where the law requires it.
Accountability rests with a person, never with a tool.
Seventy years of finding another way
On 11 September 2026 we mark seventy years since the founding of People to People International. Every decade of those seventy years has brought something new to work around. Cold war, recession, displacement, pandemic, and now a technology that could widen understanding between people or industrialise the misunderstanding between them.
Our answer has not changed. Like water meeting a rock, we do not stop and we do not give up the direction. We move around the obstacle and we keep flowing.
Advancing peace through understanding is not a soft phrase. In a divided world, understanding is infrastructure. It has to be built, maintained and used.
Seventy years on, our methods will keep changing. Our purpose will not.
We keep connecting.
We keep understanding.
We keep flowing.
Take Part in Our Seventieth Year
If you would like to reconnect with a chapter, join an Ubuntu Circle, or take part in our seventieth anniversary year, write to office@ptpi.network.
People fear less when they understand more. That was true in 1956, and no technology invented since has made it any less true.