OpenAI boss and hundreds of experts call for AI to ‘mitigate extinction risk’ to humanity


New warning. In an open letter, published this Tuesday, May 30, hundreds of world experts in the technological sphere are concerned about the impact of artificial intelligence for the human species. Among the signatories, we find in particular Sam Altman, the president of OpenAI, the company behind the conversational robot ChatGPT, but also Dario Amodei, the boss of the American start-up Anthropic which is developing an alternative to ChatGPT, Demis Hassabis , the CEO of Google DeepMind, or Geoffrey Hinton, an AI pioneer who decided to leave Google to sound the alarm on the excesses around this technology.

In the letter posted on the website of the Center for AI Security (CAIS), the position of these specialists in the sector (CEOs, researchers, engineers, etc.) is contained in a single sentence: “AI extinction risk mitigation should be a global priority alongside other society-wide risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” Very strong comparisons which testify to the fears born of the runaway race for artificial intelligence in recent months under the impetus of the euphoria triggered by the arrival of ChatGPT.

Experts were already calling for a break in AI

The publication of this open letter to warn of potential threats from AI comes two months after another in which Elon Musk and hundreds of world experts called for a six-month moratorium on research into artificial intelligences more powerful than ChatGPT in its version 4. They also called for the implementation of security systems, including dedicated regulations, as well as the appearance of techniques to help distinguish the real from the artificial.

Since then, concerns have only grown with regard to generative AIs, to the point that experts fear that AIs will get out of control and may one day surpass human intelligence. In this context, the pressure is growing to regulate the sector, especially in the European Union which has recently accelerated the pace to become the world reference in terms of AI regulation. It is in particular to address this subject that Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI, is currently making a world diplomatic tour. In Paris, the American leader, who calls for regulation of AI, notably met Emmanuel Macron, but also the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, and the Minister Delegate for Digital, Jean-Noël Barrot.



Source link -98