Approximately 400 scientists, including Hinton and Bengio, call for a global AI watchdog

Some of the people who helped build modern artificial intelligence would now like someone to keep an eye on it. On October 13, 2026, approximately 400 scientists from 34 countries signed an open letter calling for an international body to oversee and set standards for advanced AI systems. The signatories include Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, both Turing Award winners and two of the field’s most recognizable pioneers. What the scientists are asking for The letter focuses on a specific category of technology: advanced “cyber-capable” AI systems. These are models capable enough to cause real damage in digital environments if something goes wrong. The signatories want an international oversight body built around two main jobs. The first is setting containment standards. The second is handling security incident reporting. Their most concrete demand is that frontier models should initially be air-gapped during development and testing. Air-gapping means physically isolating a system from outside networks. The signatories argue that voluntary industry measures are insufficient. They are calling for high-assurance containment practices to be put in place now, while governments work tow...