GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The United Nations (UN) rights chief called Monday for countries and “frontier” artificial intelligence companies to act urgently to rein in a technology he warned posed “unprecedented risks”.

In a letter sent to countries and AI developers and shared with the media, Volker Turk cautioned that the world was “on the cusp of irreversible change, affecting not just us but generations of humanity to come”.

“The current race towards ever more powerful AI is a step change towards greater existential risks to every aspect of our lives.”

“I call on states and companies to mobilise urgently through multilateral fora to chart a path for action to govern advanced, frontier Al models, grounded in international human rights law.”

He sent the letter as a fierce debate rages over whether the development of AI should be slowed. United States (US) President Donald Trump and key allies have pushed back against calls to slow the development of AI.

A furore erupted this month after a researcher publicly resigned from Anthropic over fears that the technology could escape human control.

Another Anthropic employee, who did not resign, stated publicly that “we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans”, and that he thought the chances were greater than “10 percent within the next decade”.

Amid the outcry, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called Saturday for AI companies to “pace the frontier” — or coordinate a slowdown in the technology’s development, with his chief competitors, xAI’s Elon Musk and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, publicly supporting him.

The UN rights office said those companies were among 10 AI developers, also including Meta, Microsoft and Google, who received Turk’s letter.

– AI ‘accelerating’ warfare –

“In today’s world, we are almost entirely reliant on a small number of powerful companies to make the right choices on Al development for all of humanity,” the rights chief wrote.

“Industry co-regulation is an urgently needed first step, but on its own, it is nowhere near sufficient,” he said.

The rights chief warned of the “unprecedented risks” posed by the emergence of increasingly capable AI agents.

“Entire populations could be cut off from clean water, heating, and financial services, and agentic AI is already accelerating the pace and reach of warfare and eroding safeguards that stand between us and the launch of weapons of mass destruction,” he said.

“The companies that are at the forefront of developing frontier Al, based mainly in the People’s Republic of China and in the United States of America, have both the responsibility and the ability to move immediately to reduce risks,” Turk said.

He stressed though the need for international cooperation, insisting that “no country can govern this technology alone (and) no company should be able to decide by itself which risks the world must accept”.

“No person should be required to surrender their human rights in exchange for claims of technological progress.”