UNGA: AI Risks, Iran conflict set to dominate Wednesday’s talks - The Guardian Nigeria News
The 81st United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
The 81st United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
The growing risks associated with artificial intelligence and the ongoing war between the United States and Iran are expected to dominate discussions at the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue are scheduled to brief the 15-member council on the implications of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence.
The briefing comes amid growing international concern over increasingly autonomous AI systems and a series of incidents that have raised questions about the security risks posed by the technology.
Hugging Face, an online platform for AI models, was recently targeted in a cyber attack involving autonomous OpenAI software, further intensifying concerns around AI safety and cybersecurity.
The technology debate is taking place alongside heightened diplomatic tensions over the war between the United States and Iran, which has continued to affect energy supplies and global trade.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is expected to address the General Assembly on Wednesday, marking his first appearance at the UN since the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran.
The conflict has disrupted energy markets after Tehran blocked the Strait of Hormuz, a major route for global oil shipments. Concerns over international shipping have also grown following the Houthi takeover of Yemen’s Red Sea coast.
Pezeshkian’s address comes a day after US President Donald Trump warned that he could “annihilate the Islamic Republic” and “drive them into hell.”
Trump also disclosed that talks had taken place between Washington and Tehran, with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi meeting Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner on the sidelines of the UN gathering.
According to Iranian state media, Araghchi said Tehran was demanding “the immediate lifting of the (US) naval blockade, the prompt payment of all Iranian assets that have been frozen, and an end to the war on all resistance fronts.”
The Russia-Ukraine war will also feature in Wednesday’s diplomatic engagements, with a Security Council meeting scheduled on Ukraine and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expected to address the General Assembly.
Zelensky said after meeting Trump that Washington and Kyiv wanted the war with Russia to end “before winter.”
The UNGA discussions come after Trump rejected international regulation of AI during his address, calling such proposals a “globalist scheme.”
“The very same people who said we’ll all be dead in 12 years because of global warming… are now saying that AI is going to kill us all,” Trump said.
French President Emmanuel Macron, in contrast, called for an open-source AI model independent of both the United States and China.
“I don’t want anyone to become the vassal of one of the great powers. Rather, we must come together to build an open-source frontier model, a cutting-edge model,” he said.
