AI could pose ‘existential’ risk to humanity, UN rights chief warns

• UN rights chief Volker Turk warns that advanced AI could pose an existential threat to humanity and calls for urgent safety guarantees.
• Turk highlights that a few men hold nearly unlimited power over AI, urging countries and supply chains to agree on strict limits.
• The UN supports harmonised global rules and held its first governance meeting in July to reduce AI risks amid similar concerns from AI leaders.

Geneva – UN rights chief Volker Turk warned on Sept 7 that artificial intelligence could become powerful enough to threaten humanity, and said he would urge companies in the coming days to reduce the risks.

“I share the concerns of industry insiders that advanced AI could pose an existential risk to humanity,” Turk told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in a sweeping speech ahead of the start of his second term in October.

“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.”

Without naming them, Turk warned that just a handful of men held “almost unlimited power over AI”. Top AI companies include Meta, Anthropic, OpenAI and Google.

“At a minimum, we need countries hosting AI and those involved in its supply chains to come together around agreed red lines,” he said.

Turk’s remarks echoed previous warnings from top artificial intelligence executives themselves about extinction risks from AI, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

The United Nations has called for harmonised rules to reduce the risks and held its first global meeting on governance in July. REUTERS