United Nations Secretary General António Guterres has called on countries and major artificial intelligence companies to work together to address the risks associated with the rapidly developing technology. He warned that the international community cannot afford to compromise on AI safety in the race to advance the technology.

Speaking to reporters, Guterres said governments have the primary responsibility to protect civilians from potential AI related threats. He stressed that national measures are necessary, while international cooperation is equally important to deal with challenges that cross national borders.

His comments followed a proposal by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who called for leading technology companies and governments to coordinate efforts to slow the pace of AI development in order to strengthen safety measures.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SpaceX AI CEO Elon Musk and several other prominent figures in the technology sector have also argued in recent days that AI development should proceed at a slower pace.

However, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken a different position. He has said that each AI company must take responsibility for ensuring that its own technology is developed and operated safely.