LONDON — Scientists and generation industry leaders, as well as the smartest executives at Microsoft and Google, issued a new warning Tuesday about the dangers artificial intelligence poses to humanity.
“Mitigating the threat of AI extinction deserves to be a global priority alongside other threats to all of society, such as pandemics and nuclear war,” the online post said.
Sam Altman, chief executive of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, and Geoffrey Hinton, a computer scientist known as the godfather of artificial intelligence, were among the many personalities who signed the statement, which was posted on the Center for AI Security website.
Concerns about synthetic intelligence systems outperforming humans and going crazy have intensified with the emergence of a new generation of high-performance AI chatbots like ChatGPT.
The last deliberately succinct warning, a single sentence, to surround a broad coalition of scientists who might disagree about the maximum potential dangers or the most productive responses to save them, said Dan Hendrycks, executive director of the Center for AI Safety.
“There are a variety of other people from all the more sensible universities in other fields who are involved in this and think it’s a global priority,” Hendrycks said. “So we had to get other people out of the closet, so talk, about this issue, because many of them were talking quietly with others. “
More than 1,000 researchers and technologists, Elon Musk, had signed a much longer letter this year calling for a six-month pause in the progression of AI because, they said, it poses “profound dangers to society and humanity. “
Countries around the world are racing to expand regulations for the upcoming technology, with the European Union leading the way with its AI law expected to be passed later this year.
By KELVIN CHAN and MATT O’BRIEN indefinite/O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.