New York [US], September 24 : OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Wednesday (local time) briefed the UN Security Council on the potential dangers of AI. Both tech czars have advocated for more control of AI systems and backed their call for pacing AI system development.
Addressing the Security Council, Altman said that while AI models can help discover new frontiers, there is a potential risk that the systems become more capable and more autonomous as they could make decisions that people no longer control. 
"Anything this powerful is also powerful, is also intimidating. This moment is complicated as we feel both tremendous potential and the very understandable anxiety at the same time. These models can help people discover new knowledge, new medicines, better healthcare, stronger education, and build more productive economies. They can be new tools for people to pursue dreams and ambition that today feel out of reach. The complexity of life has increased so dramatically for the average person. AI can be a defensive tool against this complexity as much as it can be this tool of unprecedented discovery and innovation. On the other hand, as AI systems become more capable and more autonomous, they could move faster than our institutions, concentrate power in too few hands, or make decisions that people no longer understand or control," Altman told the Council. 
Altman once again reiterated his call to monitor the pace of AI development saying that frontier labs should not take on too much risk just to win the AI race.
"I believe there are two ways that AI progress could go very badly, that we have to avoid. First, we could lose control of the future to AI. The risk is that it moves so fast that people can no longer follow what's happening or intervene when needed. This would obviously be terrible. The industry must not accept too much technological risk just because the benefits are too great and that they feel too important to slow down. Beating companies in a competitive race is not a reason to make rash decisions, nor do we believe we are locked in a race where we are unable to do that. We have unilaterally slowed down in the past. We will do so in the future. We think it's important that everyone avoids building systems where we cannot make the alignment, monitorability, and safety guarantees that we must," he said. 
Altman stressed the people should remain in control of AI decision making and ensuring alignment of AI systems was critical going forward
"No one person, or company, or country should be able to use the most powerful AI models to impose their worldview on everyone else...As AI becomes more capable, people must remain at the centre of AI decision-making. Alignment is not an abstract research question. It is the work of ensuring that these systems reliably remain under human control, reflect human values, and help people guide the next stages of development... A great future will come from people realizing their potential and building value for themselves, their communities, their countries, and the broader world," he said.
Speaking at the same briefing Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for international cooperation in regulating AI systems.
We should begin with narrow agreements that every member can support, such as a ban on using AI to make biological weapons or permitting your AI technologies to be used to make biological weapons. Second, we should build evaluation and verification systems that keep pace with AI development so that states can have visibility into frontier model capability and can verify each other's commitments. Third, we should establish common global standards for testing AI models for loss of control risks and misuse risks and a notification system for AI incidents that are significant to global security. I believe that this is the most important global security issue facing the world today. For all the differences of the people in this room, we must put aside those differences in order to confront this global opportunity and global threat that is being presented to us at the same time," he said.
Clearly Amodei and Altman believe that the power of AI systems need to be harnessed and not allowed to run free. Although neither of them has endorsed a doomsday scenario or an extinction level event, the call is for a more regulated world for AI technologies.