AI takes center stage as world leaders meet - spectrumlocalnews.com

As the United Nations hosts its General Assembly this week, artificial intelligence is taking center stage. A special session on AI has been added for Wednesday, with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warning about the risks of inaction.

“The danger is technology without accountability, capability without oversight, decision making without transparency, and that danger cannot be minimized,” Guterres said Tuesday.

But President Donald Trump rejected the push for international agreements on AI controls, saying he’s not going to stifle the growth of the new technology. The president also said the U.S. will now refer to AI as “super intelligence."

“Whoever wins super intelligence wins… And we're leading now over China by a lot and everyone else,” Trump told the General Assembly. “We're going to keep it that way.”

Trump will host Chinese president Xi Jinping for a state visit at the White House beginning Wednesday as the two nations remain locked in an AI arms race.

It comes as a growing list of lawmakers on Capitol Hill push for guardrails, with Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders writing on social media on Monday: “For the sake of all of humanity, Trump and Xi must negotiate a treaty NOW to pause AI and ban superintelligence before it is too late.”

Ahead of the talks with China, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters the U.S. has proposed a “notification system” for AI incidents, but hopes of a more sweeping agreement with China may be short lived.

“We cannot afford to ‘not’ be at the leading edge of AI, because it's going to happen,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News on Tuesday. “And if it's going to happen, we should benefit from it.”

A number of tech executives are expected to attend a dinner with the Chinese president Thursday, including Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

OpenAI also tells Spectrum News Altman will brief the UN Security Council on Wednesday.