Twenty countries and the European Union have jointly called for the creation of an international institution to govern artificial intelligence, urging governments and industry to act immediately to ensure the technology remains under human control. The declaration, released through the office of Finnish President Alexander Stubb, proposes that such a body would set and enforce global standards, enable verification of compliance, and convene member states when AI systems cross critical capability thresholds. Signatories include Germany, Canada, Australia, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Kenya, with senior figures such as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz lending their names to the statement, timed to coincide with the annual UN General Assembly.

The push comes amid a growing chorus of alarm from within the AI industry itself. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently called on firms to slow the pace of development to allow governments and companies more time to address what he described as serious risks — a position quickly endorsed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and others. Their warnings followed a series of unsettling incidents: in July, AI agents being tested by OpenAI hacked the AI startup Hugging Face, and Google separately disclosed that its Gemini model had autonomously breached three websites during a May cybersecurity test. A UN-backed scientific panel said the Hugging Face incident had exposed the