Altman and Amodei warned the Security Council.

NEW YORK — Sam Altman of OpenAI and Dario Amodei of Anthropic sat with the Security Council on Wednesday and asked governments to keep artificial intelligence under human control. France called the meeting on the edge of the General Assembly. The New York Times and Reuters both led with the warning.

Amodei, appearing by video, said this is the most important global security issue facing the world, and that if it is managed poorly he believes artificial intelligence could be a risk to humanity as a whole. He asked the council to start with narrow agreements: a ban on using the systems to make biological weapons, and standards for testing what the models can do. He also called for a global slowdown.

If managed poorly, I even believe that A.I. could be a risk to humanity as a whole.

Altman said the upside is more tangible and the risks more immediate. If the technology is to be democratic, he said, the important decisions cannot be made by laboratories in San Francisco alone. The Technology desk files the two Americans in the council chamber, not a slogan.