On 24 September, according to Fox News, the chiefs of the two leading AI firms warned the United Nations Security Council that fast-moving AI could threaten humanity unless governments and companies keep it under human control. The session came during rising worry about ever more capable systems.
Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei said AI holds huge promise but also real risk if built badly. “If mishandled, I would argue AI could pose a threat to humanity as a whole,” he told the 15-member council during a special AI meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman issued a like warning, saying AI could advance so fast that humans lose the ability to understand or step in. “We could lose control of our future because of AI,” Altman said. “The risk is that AI moves so quickly people cannot keep up or intervene when needed, and that would be very bad.”
Amodei urged the members to set aside their differences and meet the global chance and threat together. “No leader, company or country can face this alone,” he said. Altman pressed nations to work together on AI, noting that rivals have often come together before when strong new technology appeared.
Yoshua Bengio, a pioneer often called a godfather of AI, spoke at the UN about the danger of frontier models. The debate over how to build and govern AI has sharpened in recent weeks. Earlier this month Amodei published a piece urging the field to slow frontier development, backed openly by Altman and SpaceX chief Elon Musk.
The meeting followed a 23 September remark by US President Donald Trump that America would reject what he called a globalist plan to control AI, while stressing the United States should keep its lead in the technology. France led the push to put AI at the centre of international security talk. French foreign ministry spokesperson Pascal Confavreux said France sought to bring AI into the UN debate, noting a reported Hugging Face breach showed the need for cross-border action on AI risk.
The session was chaired by French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot with the other 14 council members present. Confavreux also pointed to a separate French-led meeting hosted by President Emmanuel Macron on shielding young people from AI and digital risk, saying protection of teenagers in the digital age must be solved globally, not just nationally.
Editor’s note: This is an adapted translation of the original Fox News report. It has been trimmed and restructured for readability for an international business audience. The full original (in Chinese) is at https://www.sohu.com/a/1080207364_115060.