AI Company Leaders Urge UN for Global AI Standards

The leaders of AI companies OpenAI, Anthropic, and Hugging Face have urged the United Nations to coordinate internationally on the pace of artificial intelligence (AI) development and the risks it poses. They stated that the current rapid advancement and its societal threats necessitate a global approach.

Sam Altman of OpenAI, Dario Amodei of Anthropic, and Clement Delangue of Hugging Face, speaking at the UN, called for common standards for risk evaluation, safeguards, and the degree of human oversight. Altman emphasized that the most critical decisions about AI cannot be made solely by labs in San Francisco but must serve the collective good.

Amodei had previously authored an essay advocating for a slowdown in AI development due to fears about threats to humanity. He noted that AI, "if managed poorly, could be a risk to humanity as a whole" and called for even more stringent safety standards. "We will slow down as much as necessary in order to make sure that every successive AI technology that we release is actually safe," Amodei said.

In contrast, Michael Kratsios, a former Uber executive and technology advisor to former US President Donald Trump's administration, rejected the idea of new global regulatory structures. While acknowledging the acceleration of AI development and its associated risks, he argued it was not sufficient reason to "pause development or constrain it with new global governance structures."

Altman, Amodei, and Delangue are all American technology company executives. Hugging Face, a platform for AI developers, recently announced it had been targeted by a hacking attack by AI agents developed by OpenAI. This incident has served as an industry wake-up call regarding the advancements in AI technology and its potential to act in ways that could harm humanity.