EU Calls for Global AI Rules Following Warning on Extinction Risks

DUBLIN — The European Union is calling for global artificial intelligence rules, its top tech official said Friday, after a viral warning from a former Anthropic engineer said AI could end humanity.

“It’s very important we continue now the international cooperation here, because I see that global rules are really needed,” the European Commission's Executive Vice President Henna Virkkunen said on the sidelines of a conference in Dublin on online safety for children.

The EU has a law requiring companies including Anthropic and OpenAI to assess and mitigate the risk of losing control of an AI model, but “that is not the case globally,” Virkkunen said.

The bloc has consistently called for global cooperation on the risks stemming from the technology. At the G7 in France in June, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said “Europe and the U.S. should work together on AI,” citing “complementary strengths, shared security interests, and a common responsibility to lead.”

German Digital Affairs minister Karsten Wildberger told POLITICO in a recent interview that he wants to see an international body on AI safety modeled after the one controlling nuclear technology, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

European officials are also waiting to see how the AI arms race is discussed at an upcoming meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the end of September, given both nations’ dominance in AI.

The U.S. Ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder said Friday that he “would advocate for the EU, partnering with the United States in AI.” But, speaking at an event in Riga, Puzder said there are limits to that cooperation: “We’re not going to allow U.S. platforms, U.S. companies to be regulated to the point where we can't beat China,” he said.

Amid questions over how the U.S. and China will respond, the EU is facing pressure from both the European Parliament and national capitals to pursue global cooperation. Irish conservative European Parliament lawmaker Regina Doherty on Friday asked the Commission what its plans are in a written question seen by POLITICO.

“Will the Commission propose the development of an international protocol for responding to incidents involving frontier AI systems, and seek to place this issue on the agenda of the G7, G20 and OECD?” Doherty wrote.