AI execs issue new warning to UN about ‘risk to humanity as a whole’

Leaders of three major artificial intelligence firms issued a new warning to the UN on Wednesday about how rapidly evolving AI models might soon self-improve, evade human oversight, and jeopardize global security.

Speaking before the 15-nation body during the annual UN General Assembly sessions were OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and Hugging Face co-founder Clément Delangue — key figures at the forefront of the technology sector.

“If managed poorly, I even believe that AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole,” Anthropic’s Amodei told the Security Council.

“We could lose control of the future to AI,” said his competitor, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.

As regulators struggle to keep pace with the swift development of artificial intelligence, global authorities remain conflicted. The primary powers driving the sector, the United States and China, continue to disagree on whether international regulation is essential or if market dynamics should dictate the technology’s trajectory.

“If AI is to be democratic, the most important decisions cannot be made by labs in San Francisco alone. They must be shaped through democratic processes and by governments accountable to the people they serve,” Altman told the council. “At the international level, this will require cooperation.”

“In our history, there have been times where countries who compete and don’t always like each other very much still come together for shared interests and the collective good in the face of a powerful new technology. We believe this must be one of those times,” he said.

Yoshua Bengio, a Canadian pioneer recognized as one of the “Godfathers of AI” who serves as co-chair of the Independent International Scientific Panel — created by the UN General Assembly last year — told the Security Council: “The dangers are real and imminent.”

“This council faces an unprecedented threat, one that none of its members would choose, that none can contain alone, and that does not respect the borders we defend,” he said.

Council members, including leading AI rivals the United States and China, were also scheduled to speak. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot presided over the meeting.

TRUMP WANTS TO ENCOURAGE AI, NOT REIN IT IN

In advance of planned talks between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington on Thursday, Washington and Beijing have held discussions regarding a notification framework for shared risks and objectives, aimed at addressing AI events that reach the threshold of national security threats.

Addressing delegates at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump stated that he “rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control” AI. While characterizing the advancement as extraordinary, he noted that the US would proceed cautiously.

“We’re leading now over China by a lot, and everyone else, and we’re going to keep it that way,” Trump said. “I’m not going to stifle growth of something that will be bigger than the Industrial Revolution.”

“We’re going to encourage it, not rein it in. We’re going to watch it closely through the Department of Justice,” he said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a long-standing advocate for global AI governance, has warned that rapidly advancing artificial intelligence carries risks that cannot be ignored, placing him at odds with Trump.

Initial Security Council discussions regarding AI threats took place in 2023, during which China cautioned that the innovation must not turn into a “runaway horse,” while the United States cautioned against employing it for censorship or political repression. Subsequent deliberations on AI were chaired by then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in 2024.