A sense of urgency and the fear of the unfolding dawn
Fadi Daou, Executive Director, July 2026
When the top Business People, Scientists, Economists, Politicians, and Faith leaders agree all together on one idea, it must then be treated with a high sense of seriousness and urgency. The convergence of separate reports and calls recently published by different types of stakeholders sounds, indeed, alarming.
In a LinkedIn post, published yesterday, Demis Hassabis reiterated his warning that we are "standing at the foothills of the singularity" and witnessing "nothing less than the dawning of a new age for humanity". Demis is nevertheless confident that "mitigating the technical risks related to AI is a challenge we can collectively address". Yet, this would be only possible "if we give ourselves the time and space to get this next crucial step right. Currently, as a field and as a wider society, we aren’t doing that." Worse, "at the moment, we are locked in an extremely intense, multilayered commercial and geopolitical race." Demis proposed the adoption, starting by the US, of a framework for Frontier AI
Last week, the Preliminary Report of the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI was published in Geneva, representing the consensus of 40 global experts under the leadership of Yoshua Bengio and Maria Ressa.
The evidence-based report concluded that: "Looking ahead, the gap between rapidly improving capabilities and effective risk management methods may lead to catastrophic outcomes."
Indeed, advanced technical abilities may allow novice private actors to use AI in malicious ways across a range of applications such as fraud, social engineering, cybersecurity, disinformation, biotechnology and financial manipulation. Further, There are no scientific guarantees that AI agents will not violate instructions, and evidence is accumulating of cases where they already violate them.
Some days ago, under the title "We Must Act Now", Sixteen Nobel laureates joined leading economists and AI researchers in Call to prepare for AI’s economic transformation. Convinced that in the near future, AI will generate an unprecedented transformation of the economy, larger and faster than the industrial revolution, the authors of this Call invite the leaders to an urgent action to build the guardrails and needed institutions to steer AI in a direction that complements humans and benefits society.
On 15 May, Pope Leo XIV published his first encyclical letter Magnifica Humanitas on Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. the Pope stated that: "In the era of artificial intelligence, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanization, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human."
He urged everyone to "abandon the construction of yet another Tower of Babel and to join forces in building up the common good, so that humanity will never lose its beauty."
All agree on the novel experience of the unfolding dawn of AGI. Many are expecting this moment with fascination and a sense of pride, as Demis Hassabis put it: "we’ve essentially found a way to make sand think. It’s miraculous." Yet, this is also being accompanied by a growing sense of losing control and fearing the worst. The dangerous gap between this shared awareness and the form of lethargy where we are globally now vis-à-vis this challenge is frustrating and frightening.
I wonder how many seconds, on the clock of history, are still left before the dawning of this new age! We must fill the gap now. Neither the UN nor the Civil Society and Academia can do this alone, and the Governments will not do it. The industry is responsible and accountable to this fact. Industry leaders have the power and resources to join the convening for an open multistakeholder global policy dialogue to prepare the humanity for the next day, and make from it the beginning of a new civilizational era that we won't regret.