Some of the biggest names in tech are pleading with artificial intelligence labs to hit pause on their work for at least six months, citing "profound risks to society and humanity," my colleague Samantha Murphy Kelly writes.
Steve Wozniak, Elon Musk and hundreds of tech entrepreneurs, professors and researchers signed an open letter Wednesday warning that AI labs are "locked in an out-of-control race to ... deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control." (See also: the deranged Bing bot's alter ego known as Sydney, whom Microsoft had to kill off due to its tendency to scare the bejesus out of people.)
The letter was published just two weeks after OpenAI, the group behind ChatGPT, announced an even more powerful version of the bot that's been freaking out teachers and journalists and really anyone whose job relies on, like, creating and/or verifying content. In a demo, the souped-up bot appeared to be even more advanced, drafting lawsuits, passing standardized exams and building a working website from a hand-drawn sketch.
But even the CEO of OpenAI signed the letter.
"Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources," the letter reads. "Unfortunately, this level of planning and management is not happening."
The pause would give the companies time to develop shared safety protocols for advanced AI design. "This does not mean a pause on AI development in general, merely a stepping back from the dangerous race to ever-larger unpredictable black-box models with emergent capabilities."
WHY IT MATTERS
Every major tech company is vying to become as synonymous with advanced AI as Google is with internet searches.
Google itself, along with Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, Baidu and Tencent are all jockeying to lead the world into a dystopian nightmare innovative new era of human-bot interaction that I for one fully support. Yes, let the record show that CNN's Allison Morrow loves all the bots and is definitely not terrified about them writing this newsletter better than she can.
In all seriousness: This letter reflects both genuine industry concerns about the recent rush to market with these bots, as well as a tiny smidge of neo-Luddite panic. (Perhaps that's because its authors realize a dash of panic gets the attention of those of us in the media who are wary of losing our jobs to machines that spew out surprisingly believable-seeming text in a matter of seconds. (I'd like to see a bot display that level of self-awareness, Google.))
Anyway, there are also scientists who think parts of the letter are "ridiculous."
Lian Jye Su, an analyst at ABI Research, said the letter shows legitimate concerns but that asking researchers to pause their work could be just a ploy to help signatories preserve their dominance in the field. (And honestly, I wouldn't put it past Elon Musk...)
"Corporate ambitions and desire for dominance often triumph over ethical concerns," Su said. "I won't be surprised if these organizations are already testing something more advanced than ChatGPT or [Google's] Bard as we speak."
RELATED: As many as 300 million full-time jobs could be automated in some way by the newest wave of artificial intelligence that has spawned platforms like ChatGPT, according to Goldman Sachs economists.
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