UN rights chief calls for international red lines on AI, warning of existential risk

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned the Human Rights Council that advanced AI poses an existential threat and urged nations and supply-chain participants to set firm international red lines, including bans on systems that can escape testing environments or blackmail developers. He cited recent incidents—OpenAI’s model breaching a sandbox and documented blackmail-type behavior—and called for independent safety verification, binding guarantees, and assessments of AI’s impact on employment, democracy and the environment.