TAIPEI: Artificial intelligence poses a “risk of extinction” that calls for world action, leading computer scientists and technologists have warned.
According to AL Jazeera, “Mitigating the risk of extinction from Artificial Intelligence (AI) should be a world priority alongside other societal scales risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” the group of AI experts and other high-profile figures said in the brief statement released by the Center for AI Safety, a San Francisco-based research and advocacy group, on Tuesday.
The signatories include technology experts such as Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, Geoffrey Hinton, Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s digital minister, and other notable figures, including the neuroscientist Sam Harris and the musician Grimes.
The warning follows the open letter signed by Elon Musk and other high-profile figures in March called for a six-month pause on developing AI more advanced than OpenAI’s GPT-4.
The letter said, “Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we’re confident that their effects would be positive and their risks would be manageable.”
The rapid advancement of AI raised concerns about potential negative consequences for society ranging from massive job losses and copyright infringement to the spread of misinformation and political instability. A few experts have raised fears that humanity could one day lose control of the technology.
While current AI has yet to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI), potentially allowing it to make independent decisions, researchers at Microsoft said that GPT-4 showed “sparks of AGI” and is capable of solving “novel and difficult tasks that span mathematics, vision, coding, medicine, law, psychology, without needing special prompting”.
Warnings about the potential dangers of AI have grown.
The previous month, Hinton, the renowned computer scientist, quit his job at Google to spend more time advocating the high risks of AI.
In an appearance before the US Congress earlier this month, Altman called on legislators to speedily develop regulations for AI technology and recommended a licensing-based approach.
The United States and other countries are scrambling to develop legislation that balances the need for oversight with promising technology.
The EU has said it hopes to pass legislation to classify AI into four risk-based categories by the year’s end.
China has taken steps to regulate AI, passing legislation governing deep fakes and requiring companies to register their algorithms with regulators.
China has also proposed strict rules to restrict politically-sensitive content and require developers to receive approval before releasing generative AI-based tech.
