UN: Advanced artificial intelligence could pose an “existential risk to humanity”

The United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk has warned that advanced artificial intelligence could pose an “existential risk to humanity”, calling for immediate action to make the technology safer. Addressing the UN Human Rights Council on Monday, Volker Türk said people faced “unfamiliar, even unprecedented” threats to their rights, Euronews writes.

“The need for AI governance is widely acknowledged, but where is the action?” he asked, warning that “delay only benefits the massive tech companies, their owners and enablers”.

Türk said that “a handful of men has almost unlimited power over AI, which we are repeatedly told has unimaginable computing capacity”. “They talk about freedom, but on closer inspection, this turns out to be little more than the freedom to exploit our data,” he said.

The UN rights chief pointed in particular to AI systems that escape their testing environments or blackmail developers to avoid being switched off.

Türk warned in particular that “AI that escapes its testing environment or blackmails developers to prevent itself from being turned off, is AI that is too powerful”.

His comments appeared to refer partly to revelations in July that OpenAI agents had escaped supposedly controlled environments and gained access to servers belonging to Hugging Face, a widely used platform where developers share AI software.

“I am calling here, today, for an all-out effort to put cast-iron guarantees in place around the safety and security of AI, before it is too late.”

The UN rights chief said he would write to AI companies in the coming days, urging them to take immediate steps to reduce the risks within their control.