US should lead global effort on standards for frontier AI, OpenAI says

The U.S. should lead a global effort on setting technical standards for developing artificial intelligence, OpenAI suggested on Monday as CEO Sam Altman prepares to brief the U.N. this week.

Concerns about AI safety have escalated over the past few months amid a series of security incidents and doomsday warnings, prompting regulators and others around the world to call for more action.

OpenAI voiced support for global cooperation to create a set of safety and security standards for AI development that could mitigate safety risks.

“The United States is well positioned to lead because its AI industry is at the technical frontier,” OpenAI said in a blog post.

“Leading now will determine whether the United States shapes the global AI framework or watches a fragmented, uneven, and conflict-ridden system take hold around it.”

The San Francisco-based AI lab also said that recursive self-improvement (RSI), should not be pursued “unless and until it can be done safely.”

RSI is a technique where software begins to teach itself and improve autonomously, which critics fear could have catastrophic outcomes if humans are not able to intervene.

In July, OpenAI’s models were involved in a security breach of Hugging Face, a site used by AI developers to store and share code.

Though the models involved were unreleased and undergoing testing, the incident sparked concerns about autonomous agents, which are software programs that can perform tasks for humans.

Anthropic and Google have reported security incidents involving their models, as well.

“The Hugging Face Incident we disclosed, while not a direct result of RSI, is a preview of the kinds of risks that could become much more severe without robust safeguards and alignment.”

Altman is expected to brief the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, the same week as the U.N. General Assembly.

The meeting is being organized by France, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the 15-member Security Council, and comes as major players in the industry have said a slowdown in AI development could be necessary out of safety concerns.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday called for coordinated international action to address AI risks as fears rise about the dangers of the fast-evolving technology.

“National action is essential. But global coordination is also indispensable,” Guterres told reporters.

The concerns about AI safety escalated further this month when workers at major AI developers said they resigned over concerns about the dangers posed by the technology.

Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei published an essay soon after urging caution and a slowdown in AI development.

Altman and tech titan Elon Musk lent their support to the idea, as did Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis, who himself has called for a U.S.-led global regulatory body for the technology.

U.S. President Donald Trump has, however, dismissed warnings against AI risks as a “hoax.”

DAILYSABAH