UN Calls for AI Governance as US and China Reject Slowdown

The United Nations has called on artificial intelligence companies and governments to urgently govern advanced AI models, citing existential risks, as the United States and China publicly dismissed the warnings and prioritized technological competition. The appeal from UN human rights chief Volker Türk, delivered in a letter to states and AI developers, came as leading industry figures, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, proposed a deliberate slowdown in frontier AI development. Türk cautioned that the world was on the cusp of irreversible change, stating that the current race towards ever more powerful AI is a step change towards greater existential risks to every aspect of our lives. He called for urgent mobilization through multilateral forums to chart a path for action grounded in international human rights law. The UN Security Council is scheduled to hold a meeting next week to address the threat from AI. The UN's intervention follows a public call from Amodei, who published an essay on September 12 outlining a three-step framework to pace AI development.