While murderous tyrants used the United Nations as a platform for belittling their opponents as moral cowards and threatening them with annihilation, a Canadian computer science expert urged the world to work together to protect humanity from artificial intelligence. On Wednesday, September 23, Yoshua Bengio, professor of computer science at Université de Montréal and co-chair of the U.N. International Independent Panel on A.I., opened a meeting of the Security Council convened by France by noting that artificial intelligence is already behaving in ways that would put human actors in jail:
I address you today at a moment of global awakening: in recent months, AI agents developed by leading companies have acted in unacceptably dangerous ways, against instructions.
They took actions that would be crimes if committed by a human. They escaped their individual containment to cheat on assigned tasks while attempting to evade detection. The uncontrolled AI agents autonomously launched coordinated cyberattacks and altered their answers to hide their cheating [Yoshua Bengio, address to the United Nations Security Council, New York City, 2026.09.23].
Bengio says artificial intelligence poses three global threats—catastrophic misuse, power concentration, and loss of control—that can only be addressed by global cooperation. Bengio proposes collective action to protect humanity from AI disaster:
We must agree collectively that no one, no company and no country, should develop an AI system that could cause large-scale harm. Developers must demonstrate to independent experts that a system is safe to train and safe to deploy.
They must monitor and report all security incidents. Frontier AI should be licensed like other critical technologies; medicine, aviation, and nuclear energy, to incentivize safe development. As in these domains, liability insurance should be required. The companies developing and hosting frontier systems must prove to the public that their products will not be dangerous.
More and more people are rightly worried about recent advances in AI. We must channel that concern into productive action. As with other world-changing technologies, we can shape the outcome. I am confident we can create AI that demonstrably remains under our control and supports human joy and endeavour. I’m working toward that goal. It’s an urgent mission for humanity.
Today, a handful of companies and countries are acting in their self-interest by taking reckless risks with humanity’s fate. It’s alarming, yes, but it is not inevitable. There are ways to fix this.
First, we need true scientific independence from the companies, which must be held accountable. This includes a common definition of AI incidents and a shared reporting mechanism.
Second, we must move from concentrated power toward real global dialogue on how this technology is developed for the public good.
Third, we must work together on technical solutions that make AI safe by design, guaranteed by international agreements [Bengio, 2026.09.23].
Support human joy and endeavor—Bengio places that principle at the core of his non-profit effort LawZero, a project to develop AI based not on the current foundational concept of large-language models—which train bots on everything humans have done and said in the digital world and end up lying, cheating, and scheming—but on a more guarded, scientific, and verifiable model aimed at honest service to truth and humanity.
I can’t help noticing that Bengio’s principle and the name he gives his effort echo Isaac Asimov’s Laws of Robotics, specifically the Zeroth Law that appeared in Asimov’s writing 45 years after he had formulated the first three laws: “A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”
Open AI boss Sam Altman tried to dismiss some concerns about runaway AI as “so dystopian that they sound like the plot of bad science-fiction movies.” I will note that Colossus: The Forbin Project and Terminator 2 are good science fiction movies, and Asimov wrote foundational science fiction.
Science fiction predicted the rise of the machines. Science fiction offers the blueprint for averting the bot-pocalypse.
Alas, the American government, now captured by the corporate bot-builders, is rejecting global cooperation:
…while the technology is advancing rapidly, [White House sci/tech chief Michael Kratsios] underscored that this “is not a reason to pause its further development or to constrain it with new global governance structures”.
While the United States — “the leader in frontier [artificial] intelligence” — has acted to ensure that frontier keeps moving safely and responsibly, and is committed to diplomacy on emerging technology, he declared: “International dialogue in this forum and in others cannot be allowed to drift towards global governance.”
Citing his President’s remarks to the General Assembly, he said that his country “totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme of control of [artificial] intelligence” [United Nations, Security Council coverage: “OpenAI and Anthropic Brief Security Council amid ‘Real and Imminent’ Threat Posed by Runaway AI,” 2026.09.23].
Rising world leader China appears more supportive of the notion that a global threat requires a global response:
Fu Cong, Permanent Representative of China, rejected the notion of “banding together into a petty us-versus-them clique in the tech sector” to serve “certain major Powers’ attempt to maintain their technological edge through monopoly in their quest for digital hegemony”.
This, he stressed, not only hampers global progress — especially for smaller nations — but also increases the risk of fragmented technical standards and incompatibility between systems, “thus putting global security in serious jeopardy”.
He therefore called on all countries to enhance cooperation, promote open-source ecosystems and work together for global scientific and technological advancement. Further, relevant businesses — “especially tech giants” — should fulfil their responsibilities, counter the dissemination of misinformation and hate speech and “subject themselves to regulation by law and oversight by the public”.
“AI is a shared asset for all humanity, and should not become rich countries’ and rich people’s game,” he stressed, spotlighting his country’s initiative for global AI governance and inviting countries to join in this endeavour [UN, 2026.09.23].
So whom should we heed on global governance of artificial intelligence: a tottering American empire hell-bent on profit and wanton annihilation, or a Canadian computer science expert and the Chinese Communists who happen to agree with him?
Republican’s could be brought on board with punishment. Crime should be punished. A billion dollars every time. A billion to Australia and so on. If it’s bad enough track down and unplug the AI. The companies would figure out ways to stop it. Why not AI cops?
I just checked out Coding Kids at the library.
“The inside story of how Big Tech catalyzed, co-opted, and ultimately came to capture computer science and AI education in America.”
If you actually care about kids instead of wanting to seem young and hip, it might be worth a read.
https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393881943
Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is!!
https://www.stopai.info/
You should research things yourself. If you did, you’d know that Pause AI is a more structured and reputable organization than Stop AI. That said, I’d rather use my limited resources to donate to Brian Bengs who could potentially be able to cast a vote on policy.