Ramaphosa calls for AI oversight as Trump insists US must win AI race

As global leaders grapple with the growing risks posed by artificial intelligence, President Cyril Ramaphosa is calling for stronger oversight of the technology, while US President Donald Trump insists America must maintain its lead over China.

Speaking at the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi on Sunday, Ramaphosa said AI could help tackle inequality and poverty if it is developed and used responsibly. He warned, however, that the technology is advancing rapidly and could pose serious risks.

“We must listen carefully to what those who are developing the most powerful AI systems are telling us. They are warning against systems that are capable of advanced cyber operations, assistance in biological weapons development, autonomous action, manipulation, mass surveillance, disruption of employment and ultimately systems whose capabilities may become difficult for human beings to control,” Ramaphosa said.

Ramaphosa said BRICS should establish an international mechanism for the independent scientific evaluation of AI, backed by mandatory reporting of serious incidents and stronger safeguards as AI capabilities increase.

The call comes amid growing concern about the pace of AI development.

Former Anthropic and OpenAI researcher, Jacob Coxon, has criticised major AI companies, accusing them of racing towards self-improving artificial intelligence without adequate safeguards.

“Do not underestimate the power of this technology. These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionise any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources,” Coxon said. 

Coxon, who recently resigned from Anthropic, said AI developers are deeply concerned about the technology’s potential consequences. He cited recent incidents involving AI agent, including attacks targeting RubyGems and Hugging Face.

I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below.

— Jacob Coxon (@hilbertspaess) September 9, 2026

He has called for a slowdown in AI development, a positions also backed by Anthropic CEO, Dario Amodei, who warned that development needs to be paced and that meaningful international agreement would need to include China to prevent an uncontrolled global AI race.

In an essay, Amodei proposed a three-stage approach involving coordination between AI companies in democratic countries and, ultimately, global coordination.

“Any cooperation we can achieve with China will extend the amount of time we have to spend on pacing the frontier within the democratic nations. We should aim for the higher levels while seeing the lower levels as much more likely and realistic,” he wrote. 

Amodei added that pacing does not mean stopping AI development altogether, but giving researchers and independent evaluators enough time to improve safety.

We Must Pace the Frontier: I’ve written a new essay on why the AI industry should slow down, with a three-part plan for doing so.

Anthropic is unilaterally committing to the first of these steps. We’ll provide third-party evaluators with permanent, employee-level access to our…

— Dario Amodei (@DarioAmodei) September 12, 2026

Trump, however, rejected what he described as overly negative warnings about AI.

Speaking during a visit to Ireland, the US president said some concerns being raised about the technology were based on scenarios that would not happen. Trump said the US was ahead of China in AI and made clear that he wants to maintain that lead.

“Whoever wins AI, wins,” Trump said.

South Africa accordingly proposes that BRICS should establish an international mechanism for the independent scientific evaluation of AI.

This should be backed by meaningful human-control principles, mandatory reporting of serious incidents, progressively stronger safeguards as…

— Cyril Ramaphosa 🇿🇦 (@CyrilRamaphosa) September 13, 2026