“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”
A group of scientists and other luminaries sees potentially grave dangers stemming from the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence.
The Center for AI Safety put out a brief statement Tuesday urging that work be done to ensure that AI doesn’t get out of control and threaten the existence of humanity. Among the signatories to the statement are Geoffrey Hinton, a University of Toronto emeritus professor who has warned against misuse of AI, along with OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman and Google DeepMind Chief Executive Demis Hassabis.
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The group prefaced the statement with a note saying that because “it can be difficult to voice concerns about some of advanced AI’s most severe risks,” there is a need for a “succinct” comment that can spark discussion. “It is also meant to create common knowledge of the growing number of experts and public figures who also take some of advanced AI’s most severe risks seriously,” the group noted.
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The Center for AI Safety is a nonprofit with the stated goal of mitigating “societal-scale risks from artificial intelligence.”
AI isn’t new, having played a behind-the-scenes role in common technology for years. But the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool late last year vastly broadened public awareness of AI’s power, and now companies are ramping up their involvement with the technology in a big way.
That has led to calls by some in the industry and elsewhere for a cooling-off period in order to ensure that advancements in AI are carried out in a responsible way. Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
Chief Executive Elon Musk and Apple Inc.
AAPL,
co-founder Steve Wozniak signed a petition from the Future of Life Institute earlier this year calling for a six-month pause in the development of AI.
At a Senate hearing earlier in May, ChatGPT’s Altman acknowledged the sheer power of AI to drive adverse outcomes but said he also saw ways for governments and technologists to work together so that AI becomes a “printing-press moment.”
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