U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres delivers the opening address at the first Global Dialogue on AI Governance in Geneva on July 6, 2026. (Credit: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP)
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday called for a global governance system to ensure artificial intelligence benefits humanity, warning against allowing the technology itself to "vibe-code" the future.
With AI advancing at "runaway speed," Guterres warned that "an experiment is being run on our own societies, without a plan and without consent."
"That is not sustainable," he said at the first Global Dialogue on AI Governance in Geneva, which brought together governments, technology companies, academia and civil society. "AI is already transforming our world," he said. "The question is whether we will shape this transformation together, or let it shape us."
Guterres warned that AI systems are "no longer tools awaiting instruction ... They are writing code, acting online and making choices with less and less human oversight," he said. "Our institutions were built to govern machines that follow commands. They are not ready for machines that decide."
He also voiced concern that AI is further blurring the line between truth and falsehood, while encouraging people to delegate important tasks to the technology and trust its output without question.
So-called "vibe-coding," or using AI to tell a machine what to create instead of writing code, "can do wonders," he said. "But we cannot vibe-code the truth. We cannot vibe-code the future of humanity."
Major risks
Guterres also warned about the concentration of AI power in the hands of a small number of companies and countries. Most countries "have had no say in decisions that will shape their futures," he said. Faced with these challenges, countries face a choice "between governing by design and drifting by default."
The U.N. chief highlighted AI's potential to accelerate development, improve health care and expand access to education, but said its deployment must prioritize safety and respect for human rights so people everywhere can benefit. He called for common methods to assess and verify risks, along with shared standards, particularly to ensure children's safety when using AI systems.
"We do not let medicine reach a child until it is proven safe. We test every toy," Guterres said. "Yet AI has reached our children — their learning, their friendships, their most private questions — before anyone asked what it would do to them."
He called for an AI Child Safety Pledge requiring companies to prove that systems accessible to children are safe and have zero tolerance for sexual abuse. The systems should also connect any child showing signs of distress with real human support, he said. "No child should be a guinea pig for unregulated AI."
'Killer robots'
Guterres also called for greater AI capacity and access in developing countries to ensure the existing digital divide does not "harden into an AI divide." He said he would urge the U.N. General Assembly to establish a Global Fund for AI "to build skills, data and affordable computing power everywhere."
Reducing AI's climate impact is another priority, he said, reiterating his call for companies to disclose their growing environmental footprint and commit to powering every data center with renewable energy by 2030.
Guterres said his greatest concern remains AI in military applications, particularly lethal autonomous weapon systems. "Let us call them what they are: Killer robots," he said. "Machines selecting and engaging their target and taking a life, without human control and judgment."
"That is morally repugnant ... And it must be banned by international law."
Guterres stressed the urgency of establishing guardrails to steer AI in a positive direction. "We may be the last generation able to set the terms on which humanity and machines coexist," he said.
"The door is still open. It will not stay open long."
