AI chiefs warn UN Security Council of risks as US and China split on guardrails
AI executives told the UN Security Council that increasingly powerful systems could slip beyond human control, as the US and China remain split on global guardrails.
Executives from three leading artificial intelligence companies briefed the UN Security Council on Wednesday, warning that rapidly advancing AI systems could soon improve themselves and slip beyond human control, posing a threat to international security.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Hugging Face co-founder Clément Delangue addressed the 15-member council during the annual General Assembly gathering. Amodei told the council that if managed poorly, AI could become a risk to humanity as a whole.
Altman said the most important decisions on AI cannot be made by laboratories in San Francisco alone, arguing they must be shaped through democratic processes and by governments accountable to their people. He added that international cooperation would be required, and that countries which compete and do not always see eye to eye have in the past come together for shared interests in the face of powerful new technology.
Yoshua Bengio, a Canadian regarded as one of the "Godfathers of AI" and co-chair of the Independent International Scientific Panel created by the UN General Assembly last year, told the council that the dangers are real and imminent. He described the threat as unprecedented, one that no single member could contain alone and that does not respect borders.
Council members, including AI rivals the United States and China, were also due to speak. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot chaired the meeting.
Ahead of a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington on Thursday, the two countries have discussed setting up a notification system covering AI-related incidents that rise to a national security level, aimed at common goals and common threats.
Trump told world leaders at the General Assembly on Tuesday that he rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control AI. He described the technology as amazing and said the United States would be careful, adding that Washington is leading China and everyone else by a lot and that he would not stifle the growth of something that will be bigger than the Industrial Revolution. He said his administration would encourage AI rather than rein it in, while watching it closely through the Department of Justice.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who has long pushed for global governance of AI, has warned that rapidly advancing artificial intelligence poses risks that cannot be ignored, putting him at odds with Trump.
The Security Council first met on the risks of AI in 2023, when China said the technology should not become a "runaway horse" and the United States warned against its use to censor or repress people. Then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken chaired a Security Council meeting on AI in 2024.