The United Nations (UN) rights chief called on Monday (September 14, 2026) for countries and “frontier” Artificial Intelligence (AI) companies to act urgently to rein in a technology he warned posed “unprecedented risks”.
In a letter sent to countries and AI developers and shared with the media, Volker Turk cautioned that the world was “on the cusp of irreversible change, affecting not just us but generations of humanity to come”. He sent the letter at a time when worries over the risks of “superintelligent” computer systems have been on full display, after a researcher publicly resigned from leading AI firm Anthropic over fears that the technology could escape human control. Another Anthropic employee, who did not resign, stated publicly that “we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans”, and that he thought the chances were greater than “10% within the next decade”. Amid the outcry, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called on Saturday (September 12, 2026) for AI companies to “pace the frontier” — or coordinate a slowdown in the technology’s development, with his chief competitors, Elon Musk of xAI and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, publicly supporting him.
