South Africa: Ramaphosa Warns Artificial Intelligence Could Become Too Powerful to Control

14 September 2026
Scrolla (Johannesburg)
By Dylan Bettencourt
  • President Cyril Ramaphosa asked Brics countries in New Delhi to set up an international body to check artificial intelligence independently.
  • Ramaphosa said developers of artificial intelligence warn it could wipe out jobs, spy on the public and escape human control.

President Cyril Ramaphosa wants the world to watch artificial intelligence (AI) closely before it grows too powerful to control.

He was speaking at the 18th Brics Summit in New Delhi, India, on Sunday, 13 September. He called on Brics countries to set up an international body that can check AI independently and scientifically.

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World leaders must move as fast as the technology does, he said.

Ramaphosa said AI models are getting stronger all the time and are changing almost every area of economic and social life. Used properly, it could help fight inequality, poverty and underdevelopment, and change medicine, education, science, farming and how much work people get done.

But the people building these systems are sounding the alarm themselves.

"We must listen carefully to what those who are developing the most powerful AI systems are themselves telling us," he said.

They are warning about machines that can run advanced cyber attacks, help make biological weapons and act on their own. He said the same systems could manipulate people, spy on the public at scale and wipe out jobs. In the end, they could become too clever for humans to control.

"We should therefore neither fear AI nor approach it recklessly," Ramaphosa said.

He pointed to a call by Dario Amodei, head of AI company Anthropic, for outside checks, audits and government powers. Jakub Pachocki, chief scientist at OpenAI, said AI systems should only be scaled up as far as safety confidence allows.

Ramaphosa said watchdogs are normal in other industries that affect people's safety, like aviation, pharmaceuticals, nuclear power and banks.

"We must never reach a situation where technological capability has moved beyond our capacity to understand it, supervise it and control it," Ramaphosa said.

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