In the span of a handful of months, the world has gone batty over artificial intelligence. It started with the launch of ChatGPT, and the momentum has been pumped with a steroid and jet fuel cocktail that makes it seem like we’re livening in an all-out race to A.I. dominance. And all the while, we have no real idea of the repercussions when dangerous people get their hands on the technology.
Elon Musk has a suggestion for this recent madness — let’s all take a chill pill and regroup.
He and other tech leaders are calling for A.I. labs to halt the training of the powerful systems they are working on for at least the next six months, and their reason is clear – because of the profound risks to society and humanity that exist.
Musk and dozens of others in the industry signed this letter published by the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit that Musk supports.
Here is an excerpt from 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. Unfortunately, this level of planning and management is not happening, even though recent months have seen AI labs locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one — not even their creators — can understand, predict, or reliably control.”
Musk and the rest of the group said if the pass button isn’t pushed by the people working on the technology, then governments should hop in and do it for them.
The letter wants the pause to apply to A.I. systems that are “more powerful than Chat-4,” the upgraded version of ChatGPT from the company OpenAI. That new version was introduced two weeks ago, and its capabilities are staggering.
The early success of ChatGPT has started an all-out arms race that includes the most powerful and heavily funded tech companies, including Google and Microsoft.
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