If you haven’t looked at Twitter in the last week or so, you are missing out. Not that I care for Elon Musk or any egotist billionaires, I find it interesting that big leaders in the tech space are advocating for a temporary ‘stop’ in AI development. We have spoken about AI in this class for the past couple months and have seen the pros and cons of developing AI. In this case, the petition brought up concerns that AI with human-competitive intelligence can pose serious hazards to society and mankind. Its goal is to urge AI based firms to “immediately cease” developing AI systems that are more potent than Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4 (GPT-4) for at least six months. The open letter has been signed by more than 2,600 tech industry leaders and researchers and over 6,000 total signatures.
This petition in particular has divided big names in the tech space for those who are for the petition and those who are against it. A list of notable industry figures include Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and Emad Mostaque, CEO of Stability AI – the company responsible for inventing stable diffusion. On the opposite end, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Satvik Sethi and former Web3 executive at Mastercard have actively advocated against the AI petition. Armstrong tweeted, “Don’t ever let fear stop progress, and be wary of anyone trying to capture control in some central authority.” Sethi similarly expresses that the big signers have deeply invested interest in AI and are trying to slow down their competition.
The biggest reason big leaders are asking for this halt is to give time to these companies in order to develop safety protocols that would make AI systems more accurate, safe, trustworthy, and loyal. The petition advocates ideally for these AI companies to take it upon themselves to halt the development of further AI for six months. Should they not do this, the open letter suggests that the government step in. The government has stepped into potential threats such as human cloning and eugenics and stopped the further development. The petition compares the previous events with this current AI threat and to treat it with the same caution.
As mentioned in the open letter, “Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable”. This statement brings up several issues we have seen with AI such as the loss of jobs to AI, information channels prompting propaganda and explicit information, and threats to consumer privacy. We have seen AI take the world by a storm and it brings the question if we have given companies enough time to create backup or safety plans to this changing AI.
Change brings about good and bad. Ultimately, I don’t believe we can control AI development to only bring up positive enhancements in our society. We can truly only mitigate the risks that are associated with implementing AI within our everyday lives. Companies have seen the rise of AI and need to make the effort to adapt to these advancements in the technology space. I personally wouldn’t compare the development of AI to cloning human babies to that extent, but I do believe there should be some government regulation. This leaves the question – Would you sign the petition for the temporary halt in further AI development?
Sources:
Musk, Wozniak, and other tech leaders sign petition to halt further AI developments | ZDNET
Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter – Future of Life Institute
Elon Musk-led petition to halt AI development divides tech community (cointelegraph.com)
Great post, Elaine! I find it funny how our class was on Twitter making fun of a fake job posting about a killswitch engineer position available at Open AI. After reading about the open letter, it might not be a bad idea for them to have a killswitch engineer in the first place (lol). To answer your question, I personally wouldn’t put my signature on the petition to stop AI development because someone else will continue to innovate and develop the technology. I agree that there should be government regulation for the use of AI that has human involvement and implications but we should allow as much research and development as we can on technology such as AI.
Hi Elaine! Great post. I love the first sentence of your blog post. I really don’t care much for Elon either, but it’s literally like we can not escape him, lol. After discussing in class, I personally wouldn’t sign the petition and believe that we shouldn’t stop the growth of AI. Just like everything else in the technological space, new technology can be harmful. From augmented reality to 3D printing to literally our cars and phones, anything can pose “serious hazards”. Furthermore, if the United States does allow this petition to pass, we are definitely going to fall back on the AI race with other countries. I mean, if we aren’t the ones inventing a potentially “serious hazard” then another country will, namely China. The possibility of AI turning dangerous is going to always exist, so I think we should rather manage the risks than completely halt it.
I’m not a voluntary halt kind of guy in general, and not in this situation either. I do feel like the risks are overblown by some tech leaders, and I don’t think its realistic either. I’m not sure 6 months would get us any closer to thinking about these concerns or finding a way to solve them. The best solution is likely to iterate, continue developing while being cognizant of the potential risks. I think the real risks are more likely mundane (e.g. bias in lending decisions), which we should be on guard against as the tools begin to get rolled out.
There are many concerns with AI, but I do think they are overblown. I believe that humans will be capable of altering its course if it takes too extreme of a shift. I do not think I would stop the development because everyone else will simply continue outside of the US, and that will only hinder us in the future.
Hey Elaine, I think this has been a trend for the past 10 years regarding how AI will take over the world. I think people have taken the idea of this tech out of proportion. Some people fear the idea that the world will turn into Wall-E. Where people don’t do much for themselves, and it’s more of others controlling them. I personally think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks of this idea as a whole.
Hi Elaine, I have been back and forth on this question since discussing it in class. I think AI development can pose serious risks for us with jobs and security, but there will be other countries that continue their AI development. I like how you mentioned examples of the dangers of AI including cloning and job loss as these are serious concerns that need to be considered. If I had to decide now, I don’t think I would sign the petition since we will be behind as a country on AI innovation, especially to competitive countries like China. I agree that we should mitigate some of the risks with government regulation and we should (cautiously) continue the development of AI.
Hi Elaine, this was a great post. I do believe that even though AI is a fast learning technology, humans will have some type of control on the backend. We are the ones making this type of tech and we need to ensure that we’re helping its market grow while simultaneously keeping it restrained. I feel like I would sign the petition right now because I love to take precautions. This topic relate to s more risk more reward type thing and I’m here for it.
Hey Elaine, I thought this was a great post. I was talking to my roommates just this morning about this subject. I think Elon has a point to a limit. I agree that we do need to think about the application of AI and where we are going with this technology. However, if it is not chatGPT it will be another company catching up and pushing the limits. The US is in the lead right now and we need to be careful in how we apply this but also make sure we stay ahead of competition and other countries like China.
Hey Elaine! Great post. It’s a complex issue that’s definitely got the tech industry divided. Some think it’s a good idea to temporarily stop AI development until safety protocols are in place, while others think that we shouldn’t let fear hold back progress. I think it’s important to be aware of the potential risks of AI, like job loss and privacy concerns, but we should also consider the benefits it could bring to society like so many of the great blog posts have talked about!
HI Elaine, I like your focus on AI from a sociological POV. It is funny leaders want to regulate preemptively because I think it is virtually impossible. You can’t regulate the future, you have to adapt. Also… you would need AI to address this regulatory concern as you are essentially forecasting.
Hi Elaine, I liked hearing your perspective on this controversy. Hopefully the catastrophes that some have described are overexaggerated, and don’t cause the problems they suggest. I personally think this will be the case, but there will be a lot of impacts to different roles in particular which could be dangerous to the way of life as it is.
Hey Elaine, great post about a super relevant topic. I think it is a good thing to halt the development of AI. I believe as humans we want to continue to rapidly improve, but with the topic of AI it is best we slow down. I believe it could get out of our hands faster than we may anticipate and this is why it is a good idea to sign this petition.
Hi Elaine! Great post!. Have to agree with your take on how the development of AI comes with both good and bad, and that the risks associated with it need to be mitigated. While I understand the concerns of those who signed the petition for a temporary halt in AI development, I also see the perspective of those who are against it, as it could potentially slow down progress.