The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, warned this Monday for the urgent need to establish global governance for artificial intelligence. Turk made this warning at the opening of the 63rd session of the Human Rights Council, which is taking place in Geneva, Switzerland.
During his speech, the High Commissioner stated that advanced AI "may represent an existential risk for humanity." The UN official exemplified the dangers by describing hypothetical scenarios, stating that "an AI that escapes its testing environment or blackmails programmers to avoid being deactivated is too powerful."
Turk called for the creation of safeguards to regulate the development and use of artificial intelligence, emphasizing that the international community cannot postpone this issue any longer. The warning comes in a context of rapid technological advances that have raised growing concerns among experts and world organizations about the risks associated with increasingly sophisticated AI systems.
