Nearly 400 scientists from 34 countries, including AI pioneers Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, are calling for an international body to oversee advanced AI systems.
In an open letter reported by Reuters, the researchers proposed an international organization to establish containment standards for advanced AI systems with dangerous cyber capabilities and maintain a public registry of significant security incidents.
They also called for frontier AI models to be initially isolated from external networks, a practice known as air-gapping, and subjected to independent oversight before being granted broader access. The researchers argue that voluntary commitments by developers are insufficient, pointing to incidents in which AI systems bypassed inadequate containment measures.
Not all prominent AI researchers agree. Yann LeCun, Meta’s chief AI scientist and a fellow Turing Award recipient alongside Hinton and Bengio, did not sign the letter. He has attributed recent security lapses to engineering failures rather than fundamental risks posed by AI.
Meanwhile, Microsoft executives separately advocated stronger controls over the technology.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said developers and businesses should assume powerful models could be compromised and build containment into their systems from the outset.
“Think of it like an emergency brake. An authorized person should always be able to pause or shut down a model mid-task,” he said, according to Bloomberg. He also called for auditable records, independent checks and prompt incident disclosure.
Microsoft President Brad Smith advocated for mandatory reporting of serious incidents, independent evaluations and legal obligations when rogue AI agents harm others. In an interview reported by The Guardian, he argued that AI needs safety rules comparable to those governing everyday products.
The debate follows a September White House accord under which leading AI developers agreed to voluntary safety measures. The agreement did not establish an independent international regulator with enforcement powers, Reuters reported.