Artificial intelligence has dominated headlines in recent weeks, as industry leaders warn that development is moving too fast. Now, some of those same leaders are taking their concerns to the global stage.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei both spoke to the U.N. Security Council Wednesday.
Their message: The world needs to start figuring out some rules for AI.
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What did Altman and Amodei have to say?
Altman and Amodei lead rival AI companies, but they’re now saying essentially the same thing: AI is advancing fast enough that countries need to work together on safety.
“We’ve been talking about artificial intelligence for years, but it feels different in recent weeks and months,” Altman said. “Rapid model progress has made the timeline feel more compressed, the upside more tangible, but also the stakes and the risks more immediate. We have a choice in front of us. AI can either be more like a new renaissance of creativity and discovery, or more like a new Industrial Revolution of upheaval and disarray.”
Altman wants countries to develop common standards for testing AI models — what they can do, where the risks are and whether their safeguards actually work.
Amodei went further, warning that poorly managed AI could pose a risk to humanity.
“We should establish common global standards for testing AI models for loss of control risks and misuse risks,” Amodei said. “And a notification system for AI incidents that are significant to global security.”
Trump resists global rules
Wednesday’s meeting was a briefing, not a session aimed at adopting new rules, so no immediate changes came out of it.
And President Donald Trump has already made clear he doesn’t want new rules slowing AI development. He told the U.N. this week the U.S. is going to “encourage it, not rein it in.”
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