{"id":127123,"date":"2026-09-07T16:23:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T16:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/127123\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T16:23:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T16:23:15","slug":"ai-could-pose-existential-risk-to-humanity-un-rights-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/127123\/","title":{"rendered":"AI could pose \u2018existential risk to humanity\u2019: UN rights chief"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article-text\">GENEVA: The United Nations rights chief warned Monday that artificial intelligence could pose an \u201cexistential threat to humanity\u201d, demanding immediate action to reduce the risks. Speaking before the UN Human Rights Council, Volker Turk warned that humans currently faced \u201cunfamiliar, even unprecedented\u201d threats to their rights. \u201cThe need for AI governance is widely acknowledged, but where is the action?\u201d he asked, warning that \u201cdelay only benefits the massive tech companies, their owners and enablers\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-text\">Turk decried that \u201ca handful of men has almost unlimited power over AI, which we are repeatedly told has unimaginable computing capacity\u201d. \u201cThey talk about freedom, but on closer inspection, this turns out to be little more than the freedom to exploit our data,\u201d the rights chief said.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/kuwaittimes.com\/kuwaittimes\/uploads\/images\/2026\/09\/07\/440115.jpg\" alt=\"GENEVA: Deputy UN High commissioner for Human Rights Awa Dabo looks on.-- AFP\" onerror=\"this.src=\" width=\"800\" height=\"480\"\/><\/p>\n<p>GENEVA: Deputy UN High commissioner for Human Rights Awa Dabo looks on.&#8211; AFP<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/kuwaittimes.com\/kuwaittimes\/uploads\/images\/2026\/09\/07\/440116.jpg\" alt=\"GENEVA: President of the UN Human Rights Council Indonesia's Ambassador Sidharto Reza Suryodipuro speaks.-- AFP\" onerror=\"this.src=\" width=\"800\" height=\"480\"\/><\/p>\n<p>GENEVA: President of the UN Human Rights Council Indonesia&#8217;s Ambassador Sidharto Reza Suryodipuro speaks.&#8211; AFP<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-text\">Turk warned in particular that \u201cAI that escapes its testing environment or blackmails developers to prevent itself from being turned off, is AI that is too powerful\u201d. He appeared to be alluding to revelations in July that OpenAI agents had escaped supposedly controlled environments and had broken into servers of Hugging Face, a widely used platform where programmers share AI software.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-text\">That episode shook the tech world and revived calls for tighter regulation and oversight of AI. Anthropic, Meta and other companies have reported similar incidents while testing agents. \u201cI share the concerns of industry insiders that advanced AI could pose an existential risk to humanity,\u201d Turk said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-text\">\u201cI am calling here, today, for an all-out effort to put cast iron guarantees in place around the safety and security of AI, before it is too late.\u201d The UN rights chief said he would be writing to AI companies in coming days \u201cto urge them to take the steps that are within their control to reduce risks now\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-text\">At a minimum, he said, \u201cwe need countries hosting AI and those involved in its supply chains to come together around agreed red lines\u201d. \u201cWe need independent verification, and much stronger collaboration on security within the industry,\u201d he said. \u201cWe also need to consider the human rights impacts of AI on employment practices, on fundamental principles of democracy, and on our environment.\u201d \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GENEVA: The United Nations rights chief warned Monday that artificial intelligence could pose an \u201cexistential threat to humanity\u201d,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7],"tags":[2252,44162,62057,65,39545,14507,14506,62056,62058],"class_list":["post-127123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-geneva","tag-ai","tag-chief","tag-existential-risk","tag-geneva","tag-humanity","tag-kuwait-news","tag-kuwait-times","tag-pose","tag-un-rights"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117230685893254976","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}