OpenAI published a proposal on Monday calling on the United States to lead an international effort to develop global technical standards for frontier AI, timed to the UN General Assembly. The proposal frames two building blocks: mechanisms to align national and international rules, and shared ways of measuring systems and reporting incidents. OpenAI says the standards would not be licenses or pre-release approval requirements — national governments would decide how to fold them into their own legal systems.

The document singles out recursive self-improvement — AI systems autonomously improving their own capabilities — as an area the standards must cover. OpenAI states fully autonomous RSI is not happening today and should not be pursued unless it can be done safely. The proposal also cites a disclosed 'Hugging Face Incident' as a preview of coming risks, and names a dozen partner countries from Australia to the UK.

The timing is political as well as technical: Altman is due to brief the UN Security Council on AI and international security on Wednesday, and the proposal precedes a Washington summit between Trump and Xi where AI is on the agenda alongside trade and tariffs.