UN Secretary-General António Guterres has ordered all 193 member states to hold hands in an unbroken chain around the General Assembly building until artificial intelligence becomes safe, a vigil that entered its fourth day on Tuesday with no end in sight.
The measure, announced as a «global cooperation mechanism», requires each delegation to maintain continuous physical contact with the delegations on either side. Officials who release their grip to eat, sleep or use the restroom are escorted back into the chain by UN security and assigned a new position between two fresh neighbors.
«We have determined that the risks of artificial intelligence cannot be addressed while anyone is standing more than arm's length from anyone else», Guterres said, gripping the hands of the Swedish and Kenyan ambassadors. «The chain will hold until the machines behave. We have not yet defined behave.»
By Wednesday the chain had grown to include interpreters, caterers and a delegation of visiting mayors. A rotating team of physiotherapists now moves along the line treating cramping forearms. The UN has requisitioned every folding cot within a nine-block radius and converted the Security Council chamber into a hand-cream distribution point.
Delegates reported that the arrangement has produced its first diplomatic breakthrough: two nations that had not spoken in years are now holding hands and have agreed to keep doing so, because letting go would require a formal withdrawal from the chain.