UN Hears Warnings From AI Leaders About Emerging Security Threats

On Wednesday, leaders of the world’s biggest AI companies briefed the UN Security Council in New York. The meeting was conducted during the annual UN General Assembly, where AI leaders were seen appealing to governments to set limits, establish safeguards for the technology and team up to manage the increasingly powerful technology.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Hugging Face co-founder Clement Delangue, three of the most powerful AI leaders, addressed the 15-member Security Council amid warnings that powerful AI systems could be a potential threat to humankind and that they will soon improve themselves and slip beyond human control.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said, “If managed poorly, I even believe that AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole.”

He later added, ” For all the differences of the people in this room, we must put aside those differences 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.

Divided Stances Among Leading Nations on AI Regulation

With rising advancements in AI, governments are struggling to figure out how to monitor and regulate it. On the other hand, two leading nations, the United States and China, are at odds on whether there should be global rules on AI or it should be left to market forces.

OpenAI CEO Altman told the council that “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,” he said “At the international level, this will require cooperation”.

When the Security Council convened for the first time in 2023 to talk about risks of AI, China stated that the technology should not become a “runaway horse,” and the US cautioned against using it to control or restrict individuals.

Then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken chaired a UN Security Council briefing for discussion of the implications of artificial intelligence for international peace and security.

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