Guterres calls for slowing AI development — Asharq Al-Awsat
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, in New York, United States, called on countries with the greatest capabilities in artificial intelligence to coordinate efforts to slow its development while assessing the risks associated with the technology. This was reported by Asharq Al-Awsat.
Speaking on Wednesday ahead of the UN General Assembly meetings in New York, Guterres said that artificial intelligence would be one of the main topics of his talks with world leaders. According to him, governments must first and foremost protect citizens, including from threats that AI may create.
Common safeguards
Guterres compared the competition in artificial intelligence development to the Cold War arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. He called on countries at the forefront of AI development, including the United States and China, to establish contact mechanisms, information exchange and common safeguards.
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In the UN secretary-general's view, such interaction is needed to avoid a race to the lowest standards that could one day cause a large-scale global catastrophe. He also noted that the UN already has scientific and diplomatic mechanisms and will work to turn international cooperation into concrete action.
Statements by the EU and company leaders
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, in an address to the European Parliament, also called for slowing the pace of advanced AI model development because of their potentially disruptive impact. She promised to strengthen security cooperation with Canada, the United Kingdom and other partner countries.
Von der Leyen stressed that artificial intelligence can benefit humanity provided there is a proper balance between its capabilities and risks. Last Saturday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei also called for slowing the development of the industry; according to the publication, this position was supported by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Elon Musk of xAI and Hassabis.
