The Global Call for AI Red Lines: Why We Launched a Campaign to Address Unacceptable AI Risks

Standing before world leaders at the UN General Assembly, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa gave a clear warning: We need to define what AI should never be allowed to do. Her opening speech this week officially launched our Global Call for AI Red Lines, which urges governments to agree on enforceable limits on unacceptable AI risks by the end of 2026.

We are proud to co-organize the Global Call, alongside the French Center for AI Safety (CeSIA) and the Center for Human-Compatible AI at UC Berkeley. 

Why We Believe in This Campaign

At The Future Society, we’ve championed global AI governance since 2014, and we recognize that our mission is more urgent than ever. This new campaign emerges from years of relevant work: We have spent a decade helping governments act early on AI—bringing science, policy, and diplomacy together to set guardrails that will make this technology safer for everyone.

Today, international action to address AI risks appears to have stalled. But we believe that states can still come together, recognize that preventing AI risks serves their own national interests, and act collectively. With the Call, we are joined by others who share this conviction.

An Unprecedented Collective

More than 200 prominent individuals and 70 organizations have signed, including 9 former heads of state and ministers, 10 Nobel Prize recipients, and leaders from a diverse range of fields spanning from diplomacy and human rights, to economics and biosecurity, to history and culture. Signatories include Mary Robinson, Juan Manuel Santos, Enrico Letta, Audrey Tang, Csaba Kőrösi, Joseph Stiglitz, Maria Ressa, Daron Acemoglu, Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, Andrew Chi-Chi Yao, Yuval Noah Harari, and Stephen Fry. The full list can be seen at red-lines.ai. 

This is the broadest group of highly-respected thinkers and leaders yet to call for action regarding a broad array of AI risks. It signals that global awareness and demand is increasing. 

A Turning Point for Action

There are several reasons why we consider red lines as an important direction for AI governance:

• As covered in our three-part explainer series and piece for the OECD’s The AI Wonk, red lines have been drawn before in other high-risk industries. The world has come together to ban biological weapons, to prohibit human cloning, and to limit nuclear testing. It can work for AI.
• The world cannot afford to wait for more tragedy to strike. AI is not only failing to fully deliver on its promise, it is already demonstrating real dangers with incidents that must not be ignored–from teenage lives lost in connection to chatbot use to massive cyber attacks. And as AI capabilities accelerate, so do the risks. 
• Red lines offer a focused and feasible way for governments to say: We do not accept unsafe AI development and the most dangerous AI uses that lead to large-scale, potentially irreversible harms. Red lines are minimum guardrails focused only on the most severe risks, while still allowing for innovation and human progress. 
• The Global Call for AI Red Lines is a reflection of public will. Through our AI Action Summit consultation, we’ve seen that experts and citizens worldwide want government-enforced international limits on AI risks. This is a common-sense policy approach to prevent the most adverse consequences of powerful AI.

The launch of the Global Call responds to a shift in global narratives about AI. In multilateral fora, a relentless focus on competition between nations has trumped acknowledgment of AI risks and unreliability.

Our campaign is putting AI red lines on the global agenda, showing that they are necessary and possible.

Looking Ahead

Leading jurisdictions such as the European Union, United States, the United Kingdom, and China all have explicit and implicit legal red lines on unacceptable AI risks, whether embedded in AI Opportunities and Action Plans, Codes of Practice, or state-level consumer protections AI laws. Many of these are embraced or even supported by leading industry players–most explicitly the EU’s Code of Practice, which was signed by all the major AI companies. It is time to build on that at the international level. 

Rather than focus on the challenge, world leaders can seize this window of opportunity to draw AI red lines by 2026. The Global Call is building momentum for essential diplomatic engagement. We are energized by the growing number of people joining together to make AI red lines a reality, and look forward to continuing this vital work in the days ahead. 

Learn More About the Global Call for AI Red Lines: Visit red-lines.ai to read the full statement and see the signatories. Read our three-part explainer for more context on what red lines are and how they can be achieved.

See coverage of the Global Call by NBC News, The New York Times, The Associated Press, AFP News, The Verge, and Le Monde.

Stay engaged for more to come on AI red lines from The Future Society, including during the Seventh Edition of our annual flagship event The Athens Roundtable on December 4.