'Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?' Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak and other tech leaders ask in petition to halt AI development

By Charles Passy

The petition, created by the Future of Life Institute, warns that AI labs are 'locked in an out-of-control race' -- and the results could be dangerous to society

Those are some of the statements in a petition calling for the developers of AI technology to halt their efforts for six months.

Among the prominent names who have already signed it are tech-world biggies Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang.

The petition is the work of the Future of Life Institute, an organization that says its mission is "to steer transformative technologies away from extreme, large-scale risks and towards benefiting life."

The petition paints a scary future if AI developers, such as the ones behind the ChatGPT technology, are allowed to continue on an unchecked path. As the petition states, "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."

Not that the Future of Life Institute team is calling for a permanent end to AI development. Rather, the petition argues for that six-month pause, which would allow AI labs and independent experts "to jointly develop and implement a set of shared safety protocols for advanced AI design and development. ... These protocols should ensure that systems adhering to them are safe beyond a reasonable doubt."

In the end, the Future of Life Institute calls such a break an "AI summer" in which "we ... engineer these systems for the clear benefit of all, and give society a chance to adapt."

The petition comes as ChatGPT technology is getting all the more buzzy. But the technology has also seen more than its share of pushback. Earlier this year, New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose reported on the bizarre exchange he had with Microsoft Bing's ChatGPT-driven chatbot in which the chatbot expressed its love for him.

More significantly, Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, the organization behind ChatGPT, sounded alarms in a recent interview. Specifically, he expressed concern about the potential for the technology to be "used for large-scale disinformation."

Still, Altman said that any sci-fi-style scenarios where machines take over the world wasn't possible. AI technology "is a tool that is very much in human control," he said.

-Charles Passy

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04-01-23 1300ET

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