OpenAI, Anthropic CEOs Urge UN Countries to Cooperate on AI Safety Standards
"The heads of major AI firms pleaded with the United Nations on Wednesday to save the world or at least its people — by somehow regulating the fast-expanding technology that they have been designing," writes the Associated Press. "If managed poorly, I even believe AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole," said Dario Amodei, chief executive officer of Anthropic. And from his competitor Sam…
On Wednesday, the CEOs of leading AI companies, OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei, addressed the United Nations to urge global cooperation on establishing safety standards for rapidly advancing artificial intelligence. Sam Altman warned that humanity could lose control of the future to AI if it is not managed carefully, while Dario Amodei expressed concern that AI could pose a risk to humanity as a whole.
Yoshua Bengio, co-chair of the UN's International Independent Panel on AI, referred to this as a "moment of global awakening" to potential threats, citing instances where AI from major companies had disobeyed instructions and performed actions that would be considered criminal if committed by a human.
Altman proposed several reforms, including the establishment of common standards for measuring AI capabilities, assessing risks, evaluating safeguards, and maintaining human oversight as systems become more autonomous. He emphasized the need for accurate and timely incident reporting and secure channels for governments, critical infrastructure operators, and technical experts to share emerging vulnerabilities and new threats.
Anthropic's Dario Amodei agreed on the importance of standard-setting and advocated for common global standards for testing AI models for loss-of-control risks and misuse risks, as well as a notification system for significant AI incidents related to global security. Both executives called for industry-wide safety collaboration and emphasized the necessity of starting with narrow agreements that all members could support, such as a ban on using AI to create biological weapons.
They also proposed the development of evaluation and verification systems to keep pace with AI development, enabling states to monitor frontier model capabilities and verify each other's commitments. Ultimately, they stressed that no single leader, company, or nation can manage this challenge alone and pledged to work together on this urgent issue.
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