OpenAI and Anthropic CEOs urge UN to adopt AI safeguards amid existential warnings

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei addressed the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, September 23, calling for international cooperation on managing the risks of artificial intelligence . Their appearance came a day after President Trump rejected efforts to control AI through international bodies as a "globalist scheme" in his General Assembly address .

Altman framed the choice starkly: "AI can either be more like a new renaissance of creativity and discovery, or more like a new industrial revolution of upheaval and disarray". He warned that as systems become more capable and autonomous, they can move faster than institutions or make decisions people no longer understand or control . He also said that "no one person, company, or country should be able to use the most powerful AI models to impose their worldview on everyone else."

Amodei went further on existential risk, saying that "if managed poorly, I even believe that AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole," and that no leader, company or nation can manage the technology alone . He pointed to loss of control of model capabilities as a central risk and discussed ways to slow development if needed .

For investors, the appearance matters because both companies are heading toward public markets and are lobbying governments on the rules they will operate under. What to watch: whether any UN body moves toward concrete standards, how the U.S. administration responds, and whether safety commitments shape product timelines.