The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called on Monday for "urgent action" to regulate artificial intelligence due to the unprecedented risks posed by the most advanced systems. Türk warned that humanity is on the brink of an irreversible change that affects not only the current generation but also future generations, and insisted that all human rights are threatened by this technology, including the right to life. He urged states and companies to urgently mobilize within multilateral structures to address the problem.
Simultaneously, the President of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, warned that the European Union could be left without access to technology if it is not a producer of artificial intelligence. Lagarde's statement comes in an attempt to preserve the European bloc's technological autonomy.
Türk had already raised similar warnings on September 7, during a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council. At that time, he stated that artificial intelligence could represent an "existential risk" to humanity, evidencing a continuous concern with the topic.
