The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, issued a warning on Monday (7th) about the urgent need to create governance for artificial intelligence. In his speech opening the 63rd session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, he stated that advanced AI can "represent an existential risk for humanity."
Türk used concrete examples to illustrate his concerns, stating that an AI that manages to escape its testing environment or that blackmails its developers to avoid being deactivated represents an extremely powerful technology. The high commissioner called for coordinated action "before it's too late."
The UN representative also criticized the concentration of power in the sector, lamenting that "a handful of men have almost unlimited power over AI." According to him, these people repeatedly speak about the "unimaginable" computing capacity of the technology, but when one looks more closely, questions arise about the true meaning of this freedom.
