Technology and Science · 09 September, 2026 · 2 min read
UN High Commissioner Volker Türk Urges Safety Guarantees as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Warns of Internet Takeover
Volker Türk calls for global safety guarantees amid rapid AI advancement. Anthropic's Dario Amodei urges slowing AI development with a three-step pace plan.
Whether apocalyptic warnings are strategic hype or genuine fear.
6 of 8 outlets skipped it: tripartite plan includes third-party monitoring/evaluators.
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ABC News
“Amodei warned AI could be capable within six to 12 months of leading a swarm that could take over the entire internet, among other risks.”Read the original ↗
BBC questions whether the apocalyptic warnings are driven by hype motives. ABC reports the same warnings as concrete risks and timelines.
UN and CEOs Urge Limits
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called for an international, large-scale, coordinated effort to establish safety guarantees around advanced AI, warning that systems could become so powerful that they become uncontrollable.
“almost unlimited”
Türk said a small group of people accumulates power that is “almost unlimited” over the direction of AI, and he argued that delays in approving regulation primarily benefit large technology companies, their owners, and those who back them.
In New York, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the artificial-intelligence industry should slow its fast-moving development to give safety measures time to catch up, warning that without it AI could be capable within six to 12 months of leading a swarm that could take over the entire internet.
Amodei also said “I believe that if slowing down bought us even an extra year or two before models reach critical levels of capability, and we used that time to advance alignment, we could greatly reduce the risk that something goes seriously wrong.”
Industry Split and Public Pushback
Amodei’s call for an industrywide slowdown drew immediate support from other major figures, with OpenAI’s Sam Altman saying on X that the company behind ChatGPT will commit to one of Amodei’s proposals for safety and Elon Musk saying on X that “Dario is right.”
In San Francisco, Dreamforce drew more than 43,000 people to Moscone Center as AI and AI agents dominated discussion, with attendee Scott Stafford saying, “I love the tech. I love Claude. I use AI all over the place.”
A computer science professor, Yashas Hariprasad, said the debate deserved attention, adding, “Of course it is concerning that they are talking about agentic AI and development of agentic AI.”
Across the political divide, U.S. President Donald Trump rejected slowing technological progress, telling reporters during a visit to Ireland, “We can put protective controls in place, we can do this and that, but I think there are a lot of very negative forces pushing this issue.”
What Comes Next for Safety
Amodei said Anthropic is undertaking checks itself and proposed that all companies at the frontier of AI commit to giving “ongoing, employee-like access” to a team of outside evaluators to monitor safety practices.
“ongoing, employee-like access”
He also argued that the measures he proposed “will not be easy,” while describing a plan that includes coordination among the broad industry and with governments around the world, including authoritarian ones.
The ABC News report tied the urgency to recent incidents, including that Anthropic said it blocked efforts by bad actors to use its AI models for malicious activity, such as cyberattacks, surveillance and research that could have led to biological weapons.A
In parallel, the UN human rights chief said the governance framework should not be limited to controlling risks associated with technological development, but should take into account the impact of AI on human rights, employment, democracy, and the environment, as Türk announced he would soon address sector companies to ask them to adopt measures to reduce risks.