UNITED NATIONS: Leaders of major AI firms have told the UN Security Council that the technology calls for heightened vigilance, with Anthropic’s CEO pledging to slow down where necessary to ensure the safety of new releases, AFP reported.

“This moment calls for extreme care,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in New York at an emergency meeting of the 15-member council on Wednesday.

He warned that as AI systems became more capable and autonomous, they could move faster than institutions or concentrate power in too few hands.

“The industry must not accept too much technological risk just because the benefits are too great and important to slow down,” the OpenAI CEO told the United Nations’ top body.

Dar calls for guardrails to prevent AI fuelling arms race

He also urged governments to work with each other and the industry on decisions shaping the technology’s future.

“In our history, there have been times where countries who compete and don’t always like each other very much still come together for shared interests and the collective good in the face of a powerful new technology,” he said.

“We believe this must be one of those times,” he added.

Speaking after him, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said his company understood that as AI models became more powerful, “even more stringent standards of safety will be required”.

“We will slow down as much as necessary in order to make sure that every successive AI technology that we release is actually safe,” he said in a video feed.

“If managed poorly, I even believe that AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole,” he added.

Pakistan’s concerns

Pakistan also stressed the need to prevent AI from becoming “another facet of the ongoing arms race”.

In his remarks at the briefing, shared by the Foreign Office on Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said, “Concerted efforts are required to erect the necessary guardrails, regulations and governance frameworks. In the military domain, we need measures of restraint and confidence-building to address the risks of miscalculation and compressed decision-making.”

He emphasised that the “foremost priority is to retain human judgement and control in all stages of AI design, development, and integration”.

He added that humans must remain in control to define the structures of AI systems as well as to limit the speed and nature of future capabilities.

The deputy premier further said the technology should not be a “monopoly of a few actors”, calling for international collaboration in AI development.

“We must undertake concrete action to address the gaps and challenges that carry huge implications for peace and security,” he maintained.

“We welcome the recognition that no single company or country can manage these risks alone, and that competitive pressures are driving a race that no one can win safely,” he observed.

Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2026