‘AI could be a risk to humanity’

‘AI could be a risk to humanity’

The world’s leading artificial intelligence companies warned the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday of the risks posed by AI to humanity, appealing for governments to work together to manage the increasingly powerful technology.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told the 15-member council, which is charged with maintaining international peace and security, that if managed poorly, he believed “AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole.”

The meeting -- convened by France during the annual UN General Assembly gathering of world leaders -- comes amid warnings that AI systems could soon improve themselves and slip beyond human control.

“For all the differences of the people in this room, we must put aside those differences in order to confront this global opportunity and global threat that is being presented to us at the same time. No leader, no company and no nation can manage this alone,” Amodei said.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said international cooperation was needed.

“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.

Yoshua Bengio, a Canadian considered 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 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.

Trump told world leaders at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that he “rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control” AI, describing the technology as amazing but noting that the US would be careful.

China’s UN Ambassador Fu Cong said continuous improvement of regulatory frameworks, emergency response, and cross-border cooperation on AI was needed.

“It is incumbent upon the international community to work more closely together, attach equal importance to development and security, and steer AI development for the positive, for good, and for humanity,” he told the Security Council.