South African President Cyril Ramaphosa emphasized the need for careful management of artificial intelligence (AI) following the BRICS Summit in New Delhi. He warned that while AI should not be feared, it also must not be allowed to evolve without oversight. Ramaphosa highlighted the importance of governments keeping up with the swift advancements in technology to ensure responsible development.
Cyril Ramaphosa’s comments come amid a growing debate within the global AI industry over whether the race to develop increasingly powerful systems is moving too fast.
He has proposed independent third-party evaluators, common safety standards and greater international coordination on AI safety. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has backed the broader push for coordination among leading AI companies, while xAI chief Elon Musk has also supported Amodei’s call for greater caution. The New Delhi Declaration adopted at the summit also calls for greater cooperation on artificial intelligence, stressing that AI should be safe, secure, reliable and inclusive. BRICS leaders also backed the bloc’s statement on the global governance of artificial intelligence. The declaration seeks to balance the opportunities presented by AI with concerns over its risks, while ensuring that developing countries have a greater role in shaping the technology’s future. Chinese President Xi Jinping has also called for deeper cooperation among member countries on AI and innovation.
“We should therefore neither fear AI nor approach it recklessly. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called for the development of frontier AI to be paced so that safety measures can keep up with rapidly advancing capabilities.
Our responsibility is to ensure that human governance advances as rapidly as artificial intelligence itself,” Ramaphosa said. He said governments needed to better understand artificial intelligence and play an active role in shaping its development.
