The leaders of the most advanced AI companies are calling for a slowdown in development of their own products.
Has this ever happened before in history?
According to the Times, “In an essay, the head of Anthropic laid out the rapidly advancing capabilities of artificial intelligence and said there needed to be greater safety controls across the industry.”
“Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic, called for a global slowdown.
“Top executives of other major A.I. companies quickly signed on to the effort. Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI; Elon Musk, whose SpaceX rocket company has been ramping up spending on A.I.; and Demis Hassabis, the chair of Google DeepMind, wrote in social media posts that they agreed on the need for a slower pace.
“For years, many of the top A.I. labs have been locked in bitter competition with one another. But as these systems have advanced, there has been some broader agreement among executives at rival companies that something needs be done.
“In his essay, Mr. Amodei stressed that he still finds A.I. capable of bringing “incredible benefits” to humanity, including potentially curing diseases and accelerating economic growth. But even so, he said the risks of A.I. were too great to not proceed with extreme caution.
“The measures I propose to advance the frontier at a safe pace will not be easy,” Mr. Amodei wrote. “But I believe we owe it to humanity to try.”
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I think we have reached a critical tipping point on AI. We have to listen to the pleas from the people closest to the technology and find a way to enact a slowdown.
God help us if we fail.
Additional readings:
Inside the Snowballing Conversations at A.I. Companies About a Doomsday (NYT)
Why It’s Difficult for Tech Companies to Rein In A.I. (NYT)
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