Limit AI now or humanity will lose its agency, says Nobel laureate Maria Ressa

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa warned in Oslo that humanity will lose control of its agency unless governments legislate to limit AI now. As co-chair of a UN scientific panel on AI, the journalist said citizens need to pressure politicians and described regulation as a public safety issue rather than free-speech restriction. She outlined three AI waves: social media capturing attention and polarizing societies; chatbots “hacking biology” through intimacy; and today’s agentic “frontier models” that can act for people. Ressa dismissed claims that regulation would cede ground to China and welcomed accountability moves, citing U.S. lawsuits that led Meta to pay up to $18 billion and tighten teen usage limits.