The United Nations human rights chief urged governments to impose stronger safeguards on advanced artificial intelligence and warned that competition among countries hosting leading developers could erode human rights and encourage a regulatory “race to the bottom.”
Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said voluntary measures by companies developing frontier AI were “nowhere near sufficient” as increasingly powerful systems pose risks to people, institutions and future generations.
“The current race towards ever more powerful AI is a step change towards greater existential risks to every aspect of our lives,” wrote Türk in an open letter released Sept. 14.
Türk called on governments hosting frontier AI companies to strengthen regulation, including requiring companies to report serious incidents, verifying AI capabilities and mandating human rights due diligence.
Countries hosting leading developers have “a particular obligation” to require companies to act responsibly and hold them accountable when they fail to do so, wrote Türk.
He identified companies in China and the United States as being “at the forefront” of frontier AI development and urged governments to align their approaches to regulation.
“They need to align their approaches so that competition between jurisdictions does not encourage a race to the bottom,” wrote Türk.
The high commissioner said the risks were not limited to possible future harms. Existing AI systems were already affecting human rights and institutions.
“AI harms are not hypothetical — they are already occurring, front and centre,” wrote Türk.
He cited discrimination, surveillance, disinformation, unequal automation and threats to democratic institutions among the concerns surrounding the technology.
Türk said AI safety should be judged primarily by its impact on human rights and should include protection for people, communities, institutions and future generations. The rights to life, food, privacy, health and security are among those threatened by unchecked AI development, according to the U.N. report.
His warning came amid growing debate over whether developers can safely manage increasingly autonomous systems.
A former researcher at Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, recently resigned while warning that “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” according to U.N. News.
Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei separately called for developers to “pace the frontier,” proposing third-party evaluation of AI models, stronger coordination among companies and cooperation between governments.
Leaders at OpenAI, Google and xAI expressed support for Amodei’s proposal, according to the U.N. report.
Türk welcomed stronger industry safeguards but said governments must also act and work through multilateral institutions to build common standards for AI governance.
“No country can govern this technology alone,” wrote Türk. “No company should be able to decide by itself which risks the world must accept. No person should be required to surrender their human rights in exchange for claims of technological progress.”
He rejected arguments that stronger safeguards would necessarily come at the expense of innovation, saying decisions over AI development must place human rights ahead of technological competition.
Türk also warned that younger generations would live with the consequences of decisions now being made about the technology.
“The generation now entering adulthood will inherit the consequences of the decisions being taken on this issue without having a say in them,” wrote Türk.
Governments therefore owe it to them to ensure those decisions are made “openly, with their rights in view, and with the humility that the scale of this undertaking demands,” he added.
