Washington Pushes Back as AI Leaders Seek International Safety Rules

By Angel No Lie | KPD Online | September 25, 2026

The United States has rejected calls for a global approach to artificial intelligence regulation, placing the Trump administration at odds with senior technology executives who have urged governments to coordinate safety standards for increasingly capable AI systems.

The disagreement became prominent during a United Nations Security Council session on 23 September 2026, where OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for international cooperation on AI safety. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, said the United States opposed global efforts to regulate AI, arguing that excessive restrictions could undermine American technological leadership.

Sam Altman Calls for International AI Safety Cooperation

AI executives call for international cooperation

Altman and Amodei addressed the UN Security Council separately as governments and technology companies face growing questions about the risks associated with advanced AI.

Altman argued that AI development should remain under meaningful human control and called for international standards that could help governments assess capabilities, identify risks and share information about safety incidents.

He also proposed secure channels for governments and private companies to exchange information about emerging vulnerabilities. His remarks emphasized a middle path between unrestricted optimism about AI and predictions of unavoidable catastrophe.

Amodei called for stronger international agreements, including:

• Common standards for testing advanced AI models.

• Systems for evaluating and verifying safety claims.

• Mechanisms for notifying governments about significant risks.

• Restrictions on the use of AI to assist in developing biological weapons.

He warned that continued advances could eventually create systems that humans struggle to control if safety measures do not keep pace with capabilities.

Anthropic Chief Urges Common Standards for AI Testing

Trump rejects global regulation

Trump has taken a different position from the AI executives on the role of international regulation.

During his address to the United Nations, he said the United States rejected a global attempt to regulate AI and argued that American leadership in the technology race, particularly in relation to China, should be protected.

The administration’s position does not mean that the US has rejected every form of AI safety measure. The dispute is more specifically about whether international regulatory arrangements should constrain AI development and how much authority should be given to global institutions.

The distinction is significant because technical standards, voluntary commitments, national legislation and binding international regulation are different policy mechanisms. They can overlap, but they do not necessarily impose the same obligations on companies or governments.

UN Security Council Debates the Future of AI Governance

OpenAI seeks a US-led standards framework

OpenAI has separately called for the United States to lead international efforts to establish technical standards for advanced AI.

In a proposal reported by Reuters, the company supported coordinated standards covering frontier AI, including systems capable of recursive self-improvement. It also backed incident reporting and efforts to reduce regulatory fragmentation between countries.

OpenAI’s position favors a US-led international framework rather than an approach in which global institutions independently impose broad restrictions on the technology.

This creates an important nuance in the debate: OpenAI is advocating international coordination, but its proposal places a central role on American leadership and allied cooperation.

Why Anthropic is calling for stronger safeguards

Anthropic has taken a more explicit position on slowing aspects of AI development.

Amodei has argued that governments and companies need to establish safety systems capable of keeping up with rapidly improving models. His proposals include independent evaluation, shared standards and agreements on particularly dangerous uses.

However, Anthropic also operates in a highly competitive market alongside OpenAI, Google and other AI developers. Its public safety warnings therefore exist alongside commercial pressure to release increasingly capable systems. This tension has generated debate over how voluntary industry commitments should be assessed and whether independent oversight is necessary.

The argument over AI speed and safety

The disagreement in Washington forms part of a broader conflict over the pace of AI development.

Supporters of faster development argue that advanced AI could improve productivity, scientific research, education and healthcare. They also maintain that American technological leadership is important in the competition with China.

Those calling for stronger safeguards point to potential risks involving cybersecurity, biological weapons, autonomous systems and the possibility that future AI models could become difficult to control.

The debate is not limited to a simple choice between developing AI and regulating it. Key questions include:

These questions remain unsettled, and governments differ on the level of oversight they consider appropriate.

Global cooperation faces political obstacles

The UN meeting demonstrated a degree of agreement among several technology leaders that international cooperation is necessary. However, agreement on the need for cooperation has not translated into consensus over the structure of global governance.

The United States has emphasized technological competitiveness, while other governments and experts have called for more formal international safeguards. Differences also exist within the AI industry over the degree to which development should be slowed and the role of independent regulators.

The UN discussion therefore highlighted a gap between shared concern about potential AI risks and disagreement over who should set the rules.

What happens next?

The immediate question is whether governments can establish practical areas of cooperation without agreeing on a comprehensive global AI regulatory system.

Possible areas of limited agreement include:

1. Sharing information about serious AI incidents.

2. Developing common methods for evaluating high-risk models.

3. Establishing safeguards against AI-assisted biological weapons development.

4. Creating secure communication channels between governments and technology companies.

5. Improving transparency around model capabilities and safety testing.

These measures would not resolve the wider dispute over international regulation, but they could provide a basis for cooperation between countries with different approaches to AI governance.

Independent assessment

The current disagreement is not simply between AI companies seeking rules and a government seeking no safeguards. OpenAI has advocated a US-led standards framework, Anthropic has called for stronger international safety arrangements, and the Trump administration has rejected global regulatory efforts that it considers potentially harmful to American competitiveness.

The central unresolved issue is how to maintain human oversight and manage serious AI risks while allowing technological development to continue. The effectiveness of any future framework will depend on its technical requirements, enforcement mechanisms, transparency and the willingness of governments and companies to cooperate.

Sources

• ABC News — OpenAI and Anthropic CEOs call for global cooperation on AI
• The Guardian — OpenAI’s Altman and Anthropic’s Amodei address the UN Security Council
• Reuters — OpenAI calls for US to lead global AI technical standards
• Al Jazeera — AI leaders call for global regulation at the UN

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