World leaders gather at the UN amid wars, AI warnings and doubts about its future

World leaders are arriving in New York under a heavy mix of war, economic strain and rising fear about artificial intelligence. The annual U.N. General Assembly is set to absorb the kind of problems that make the institution look indispensable and powerless at the same time: Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Congo, Myanmar, Iran, climate shocks, blocked shipping routes and cost-of-living pressure.

About 130 heads of state and government are expected to speak, starting Tuesday. Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron are among the headline names on day one after Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opens with his annual state-of-the-world address. Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Masoud Pezeshkian follow on Wednesday. Benjamin Netanyahu is due Thursday, while Mahmoud Abbas will appear by video after the U.S. again refused him a visa.

The absences say as much as the appearances. Xi Jinping is skipping the gathering and sending a vice president, Vladimir Putin is not coming, and Narendra Modi has backed out. That leaves the assembly looking less like a summit of the world’s power centers and more like a place where power is increasingly distributed, selective and mistrustful of the venue itself.

The U.N. also enters the week in rough shape. It has been pushed to the sidelines on major conflicts, and the U.S. has still not paid billions in outstanding arrears, leaving the organization short on cash. Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group says it is no longer in freefall, but stuck in a permanent crisis, a grim phrase for an institution built to prevent exactly that.

AI has surged onto the agenda as a fresh source of anxiety. Leaders of three major AI companies warned days ago that the technology could get out of human control and called for a pause. Trump brushed that off as a hoax and kept the emphasis on staying ahead of China. The Security Council added a high-level AI meeting on Wednesday, which is about as clear a sign as the U.N. can give that it thinks the issue is no longer optional.