UN rights chief says AI could pose 'existential risk to humanity'

The United Nations rights chief warned on Monday that artificial intelligence could pose an “existential threat to humanity”, demanding immediate action to reduce the risks. Speaking before the UN Human Rights Council, Volker Turk warned that humans currently faced “unfamiliar, even unprecedented” threats to their rights.

“The need for AI governance is widely acknowledged, but where is the action? ” he asked, warning that “delay only benefits the massive tech companies, their owners and enablers”. Turk decried that “a handful of men [have] almost unlimited power over AI, which we are repeatedly told has unimaginable computing capacity”. “They talk about freedom, but on closer inspection, this turns out to be little…