Essay by Eric Worrall
Out with the old scare, in with the new.
Antonio Guterres at AI Impact Summit: ‘Less hype, less fear’ – IPCC-style UN panel aims for ‘human control’ of AI
At the India AI Impact Summit 2026, UN chief Antonio Guterres emphasised the need for a balanced approach to AI, advocating for less hype and fear while promoting human oversight.
Written By Gulam Jeelani
Published20 Feb 2026, 11:57 AM ISTIndia AI Impact Summit: UN chief Antonio Guterres on 20 February called for ‘less hype, less fear’ over Artificial Intelligence (AI) as he said that a new expert panel aimed to make human control ‘a technical reality’, news agency AFP reported.
Guterres said the United Nations General Assembly had confirmed the 40 members proposed for the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence.
“Science-led governance is not a brake on progress” but can make it “safer, fairer, and more widely shared”, he said at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi.
‘Less hype, less fear. More facts and evidence’
“The message is simple: Less hype, less fear. More facts and evidence,” he said. The advisory body – aiming to be to AI what the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is to global warming – was created in August.
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“We are barrelling into the unknown. Our goal is to make human control a technical reality — not a slogan,” he said.
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Read more: https://www.livemint.com/technology/tech-news/antonio-guterres-at-ai-impact-summit-less-hype-less-fear-says-ipcc-style-un-panel-aims-for-human-control-of-ai-11771566064031.html
The United Nations aren’t the only group dumping climate change and jumping on the AI bandwagon.
‘Slow this thing down’: Sanders warns US has no clue about speed and scale of coming AI revolution
After meeting with unspecified tech leaders, senator calls for urgent policy action as companies race to build ever more powerful systems
Lauren Gambino at StanfordSat 21 Feb 2026 15.26 AEDT
Bernie Sanders has warned that Congress and the American public have “not a clue” about the scale and speed of the coming AI revolution, pressing for urgent policy action to “slow this thing down” as tech companies race to build ever-more powerful systems.
Speaking at Stanford University on Friday alongside congressman Ro Khanna after a series of meetings with industry leaders in California, Sanders was blunt about what he called the “most dangerous moment in the modern history of this country”.
“The Congress and the American people are very unprepared for the tsunami that is coming,” he said.
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During his remarks, Sanders reissued his call for a moratorium on the expansion of AI data centers to “slow down the revolution and protect workers” while policymakers catch up.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/21/ai-revolution-bernie-sanders-warning
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I predicted back in 2017 that AI would replace the climate crisis, and this seems to be happening now.
The fake climate crisis is no longer useful as a political lever. Only people who already planned to vote left wing are still worried about global warming.
But fear of artificial intelligence taking our jobs and making rich people more powerful – that has potential bipartisan appeal.
So expect to see a lot more AI fear in the near future. But please keep in mind, the AI scare is just as fake as the climate scare. Jobs will be created just as quickly as they are destroyed – expect cleaning up the messes created by AI to become a major economic activity.
Artificial intelligence is a tool. AI mistakes are comical rather than scary, or sometimes deeply embarrassing for whoever used the AI generated content without checking it. Concern about AI job losses is just another lever for politicians to manipulate your voting intentions. Fear of AI is like being afraid of your toaster.
Update (EW): OK, some robots can be a little scary, but my terminator T0.001 needs a little work.
‘Less hype, less fear. More facts and evidence’ If they’d have applied this thought to AGW we wouldn’t be doing an about face now.
Clearly you don’t work in IT… AI is scary not because of its capabilities, but due to who’s pushing it and what they end up doing with it.
AI should never be able to overcome / replace homo sapiens sapien’s evolutionary capacity for reason / rationality.
I mean, if someone reaches adulthood relatively unscathed mentally, they should be able to consider any idea / proposition on its merits, and say –
“that looks like bullshit, present ALL the evidence for this claim”.
Bernie is a real Luddite at heart.
Perhaps he prefers native smoke signals?
Isn’t fat Antonio on the way out?
The real scare is putting all of our data and information in clouds and allowing AI unfettered access to everything.
Guterres trying to make the UN relevant on AI is not a good look. They are chartered to be relevant concerning peace, health, climate, human rights… BUT AREN’T. Changing the subject to something unchartered does not hid the fact that they are irrelevant where chartered.
If your toaster is a Ninja Toaster, then you’d be wise to be afraid of it. You will never see them coming.
Oh boy. Here we go again.
“While Hari Seldon is the creator of psychohistory rather than robotics, the “Zeroth Law” (often associated with his era in Asimov’s universe) was created by robots R. Daneel Olivaw and R. Giskard Reventlov to protect humanity as a whole. It mandates that a robot may not harm humanity, or by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.”
Quoting AI’s summary of a search based on 70 y/o scifi. I realize that old robot fiction novels are no great source of wisdom… but is a man who went on the record saying “the oceans are boiling” great source of wisdom either?
This video is a bit more impressive on where humanoid technology is now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfXopA3C5Nw
185cm and 85kg of machine able to respond faster than most humans. I expect that these will be used as security guards within a few years. I have seen demos of then on patrol with police.
The world has an ageing problem. I have been wondering if these machines will be able to clean themselves after changing nappies in aged care homes!
The United Nations was formed with one major task, to reduce the number of wars on Earth.
President Trump claims to have stopped 8 wars in the last year, the first year of his second term.
Trump noted that the UN offered zero help.
There is no logical or beneficial reason for the UN to get into control of AI. If a control body is actually needed, it should not be the UN with its abysmal record of being ineffectual.
NO.UN.AI.
Geoff S
So let me
guess. The solution will be higher taxes, more government control, a world-wide supervising entity led by the UN with the power to regulate and tax… did I miss anything?
I was told that AI was going to take over one day
I laughed
Then the stove and dishwasher laughed
The thought of Sanders and Guterres sticking their nose into the AI issue gives me shivers. The world would be better served if their function was limited to porta potty cleaners. As for AI we need an organized and well coordinated program to clearly show that just because AI can do something doesn’t make what they do true. Right now people are using AI to show celebrities looking alive and well in their prime (say an actor in his most famous role) and what they look like now. If the celebrity has died they show them alive usually dressed in white with angel wings walking up and sitting down with the younger version. Everyone knows the actors angel did not walk up and sit down with them. That is the point AI can make things appear to be true even when they aren’t so always verify stuff from AI.
If an AI user is thick, it is going to do more harm than good.
When you have a dumb hammer user, everything looks like a nail.
The article and the comments make a strong case. I can see we need every state to pass laws protecting the citizens, using the Florida Legislature’s regulations as a starting point.
Wild predictions of future a i capabilities, and irrational borrowing, spending and circular financing by a few people, are no reason to allow these Techbros to become the new sole customer of our municipal water and power companies.
Last week, my wife ordered two packages of vacuum cleaner bags from Walmart. This morning, only one package of the two that were ordered arrived. An automated text message was sent to her shortly after that the order had been fulfilled.
So my wife called the Walmart assistance number and an AI-driven robotic assistant answered.
The polite robotic lady had no option for handling an issue which involved partial fulfillment of an order without an acknowledgement from Walmart in their delivery notice that that only a partial delivery had been made.
It took five minutes of talking to convince the Robotic Walmart Lady (RWL) that it was necessary to talk to a real human being.
A human came on the line eventually but could not resolve the problem directly. It was also clear to my wife that an AI-driven application was being used by the human help assistant to deal with the problem.
He finally fixed the problem by telling the computer to cancel the delivery notice and to send out a second package identical to the first.
UN and. Intelligence in the same sentence?
“‘Slow this thing down’: Sanders warns US has no clue about speed and scale of coming AI revolution”
Yuh, right- only Sanders understands the problem. He’s SO much smarter than everyone else. /s
“I predicted back in 2017 that AI would replace the climate crisis, and this seems to be happening now.”
Maybe not- maybe they’ll keep the climate delusion going- two for the price of one.
Your robot needs tank-style treads and a laser on it’s shoulder. Followed by lots of input…
UN socialist/communist chief Guterres showed his colours on 1st May by denouncing the US action towards regime change in Iran, once great and once known as Persia. Just about every other leader with skin in the game agreed with the action.
The United Nations prime reason to exist is to stop warfare. US President Trump claims in 2026 to have stopped 7 wars, adding that United Nations did not even contact him with offers to help. Mission creep?
Geoff S