António Guterres is the Secretary-General of the United Nations. In September 2026 his tenure was approaching its end, and he was scheduled to give his final address to the General Assembly on 22 September (Source: aninews.in).
AI governance
Guterres framed the role of the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI as providing "rigorous, independent scientific insight" in a period of rapid AI development (Source: un.org). At the launch of its Preliminary Report in July 2026 he said "the world cannot govern what it cannot understand" (Preliminary Report of the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI (United Nations, July 2026)). Opening the first session of the Global Dialogue on AI Governance in Geneva on 6 July 2026, he warned that AI is developing faster than rules can keep up: "If AI is to be powerful, it must be governed" (Source: reuters.com).
In remarks on 16 September 2026, ahead of the 81st session of the General Assembly, he named "three existential threats" — "runaway artificial intelligence, the climate crisis and the intolerable deepening of inequalities." He said the world "cannot afford to ignore concerns" that AI development is progressing faster than human understanding of its risks, that "the world cannot afford a race to the bottom on AI safety," and that "global cooperation is indispensable," and called for guardrails to "make AI safe, transparent and accountable, with human dignity at the centre" (Source: aninews.in).
A Call for Control of Frontier AI Models
On 21 September 2026 Guterres welcomed on X "the leadership of the President of Finland & the Prime Minister of Norway in launching the Call for Control of Frontier AI Models," restating its third call for an international institution able to "set standards, enable verification & convene states when capability thresholds are crossed." He also welcomed the Scientific Panel's first thematic brief, released the same day, and encouraged external experts, including from frontier AI labs and safety institutes, to engage with the Panel (Source: aninews.in). See A Call for Control of Frontier AI Models (2026), AI Agents, Misalignment and the Risk of Losing Human Control: Evidence from the OpenAI-Hugging Face Incident (UN Scientific Panel on AI, Thematic Brief, September 2026).
Relationships
- related: Independent International Scientific Panel on AI, Global Dialogue on AI Governance, UN Security Council — UN AI bodies and forums.
- supports: A Call for Control of Frontier AI Models (2026) — welcomed the statement on its launch day.
- related: Jonas Gahr Støre, Alexander Stubb.
- related: Frontier AI Governance, AI Existential Risk.