OpenAI and Anthropic CEOs Warn UN of Losing Control Of AI, Call It a ‘Risk To Humanity’
The executives behind two of the world’s leading artificial intelligence companies warned the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday that the technology they are developing could eventually escape human control and pose a threat to humanity unless governments establish international safeguards.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged world leaders to introduce stronger oversight of increasingly powerful AI systems, warning that the rapid pace of technological development could outstrip humanity’s ability to manage the risks.
“If managed poorly, I even believe AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole,” Amodei told the Security Council during a high-level meeting held alongside the United Nations General Assembly in New York. “We could lose control of the future to AI,” Altman warned.
The meeting brought together technology executives, researchers and diplomats to examine how artificial intelligence could affect international peace and security. Both Altman and Amodei argued that governments must establish safeguards before AI systems become too powerful to control.
They also warned against allowing the technology to become concentrated in the hands of a single company or country, raising concerns about how advanced AI could reshape global power.
The executives’ warnings reflect growing concerns about the development of increasingly autonomous systems capable of performing complex tasks with limited human supervision. As companies race to build more sophisticated models, researchers are examining whether future AI systems could circumvent safety restrictions, pursue unintended objectives, or behave in ways their developers cannot reliably predict.
Altman called for decisions about the future of artificial intelligence to be made through democratic institutions rather than exclusively by technology companies. His remarks underscored the need for international cooperation, even as governments compete for leadership in an industry with significant economic and national security implications.
Amodei has also advocated for independent safety evaluations of advanced AI models, greater coordination among developers and international agreements designed to identify potentially dangerous capabilities before they are widely deployed.
The debate extends beyond the possibility of AI escaping human control. A day before Wednesday’s meeting, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned about the dangers of lethal autonomous weapons, often described as “killer robots,” which could identify and attack targets without meaningful human intervention.
Such weapons have become a major concern for international security experts, who warn that delegating life-and-death decisions to machines could create serious challenges involving accountability, international humanitarian law, and the potential escalation of armed conflicts. Guterres has repeatedly called for international restrictions on autonomous weapons and insisted that humans must retain control over decisions involving the use of lethal force.
