EU tech chief calls for global AI rules after extinction warnings

European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen called for global rules on artificial intelligence on Friday, days after researchers at leading AI labs publicly warned the technology could cause human extinction within the decade.

"It's very important we continue now the international cooperation here, because I see that global rules are really needed," Virkkunen said on the sidelines of a conference on child safety online in Dublin, according to Politico Europe.politico

Researcher Warnings Raise the Stakes

The push for international coordination comes in the wake of an extraordinary series of public warnings from AI insiders. Jacob Coxon, a former engineer who spent three years working on pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic, resigned from Anthropic on Tuesday and posted on X that "neither company is acting responsibly".axios+1

"They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives," Coxon wrote. "The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade".nypost+1

Evan Hubinger, Anthropic's alignment-science lead, responded publicly that he "personally think it is >10% within the next decade," adding that the company "does not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence". Samuel Marks, Anthropic's scalable-oversight lead, echoed the concerns, saying "in general, the more senior the employee, the more concerned they are".bbc+1

The warnings prompted calls from at least 22 serving U.S. officials for regulation, congressional hearings and, in some cases, a development pause, according to Anadolu Agency.aa

EU Points to AI Act as Template

Virkkunen noted that the EU already has legislation requiring companies, including Anthropic and OpenAI, to assess and mitigate the risk of losing control over AI models — but that such requirements do not exist globally. The EU AI Act entered into force in August 2024 and became broadly applicable in August 2026.ua+2

The call for international coordination aligns with broader European diplomatic efforts. In June, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen urged EU-U.S. cooperation on AI at the G7 summit in France, while Germany's Minister for Digital Affairs Carsten Wildberger has advocated for an international AI safety body modeled on the International Atomic Energy Agency.ua

U.S. Ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder has signaled support for a transatlantic AI partnership but cautioned against regulations that could weaken American firms' ability to compete with China.ua