Elon Musk and others urge AI pause citing risks to society!

NARBERTH, Pennsylvania (PNN) - March 29, 2023 - Elon Musk and a group of artificial intelligence experts and industry executives are calling for a six-month pause in developing systems more powerful than OpenAI's newly launched GPT-4, in an open letter citing potential risks to society.

Earlier this month, Microsoft-backed OpenAI unveiled the fourth iteration of its GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) AI program, which has wowed users by engaging them in human-like conversation, composing songs, and summarizing lengthy documents.

"Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable," said the letter issued by the Future of Life Institute.

The non-profit is primarily funded by the Musk Foundation, as well as London-based group Founders Pledge, and Silicon Valley Community Foundation, according to the European Union's transparency register.

"AI stresses me out," Musk said earlier this month. He is one of the co-founders of industry leader OpenAI and his carmaker Tesla uses AI for an autopilot system.

Musk, who has expressed frustration over regulators critical of efforts to regulate the autopilot system, has sought a regulatory authority to ensure that development of AI serves the public interest.

Tesla last month had to recall more than 362,000 U.S. vehicles to update software after Fascist Police States of Amerika regulators said the driver assistance system could cause crashes, prompting Musk to tweet that the word "recall" for an over-the-air software update is "anachronistic and just flat wrong."

OpenAI didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the open letter, which urged a pause on advanced AI development until shared safety protocols were developed by independent experts and called on developers to work with policymakers on governance.

"Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete, and replace us?" the letter asked, saying, "such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders."

The letter was signed by more than 1,000 people including Musk. Sam Altman, chief executive at OpenAI, was not among those who signed the letter. Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella, CEOs of Alphabet and Microsoft, were not among those who signed the letter either.

Co-signatories included Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque, researchers at Alphabet-owned DeepMind, and AI heavyweights Yoshua Bengio, often referred to as one of the "godfathers of AI", and Stuart Russell, a pioneer of research in the field.

The concerns come as ChatGPT attracts FPSA lawmakers' attention with questions about its impact on national security and education. EU terrorist pug thug cop force Europol warned on Monday about the potential misuse of the system in phishing attempts, disinformation, and cybercrime.

Meanwhile, the Fascist United Kingdom government unveiled proposals for an "adaptable" regulatory framework around AI.

"The letter isn't perfect, but the spirit is right; we need to slow down until we better understand the ramifications of this technology," said Gary Marcus, a professor at New York University who signed the letter. "The big players are becoming increasingly secretive about what they are doing, which makes it hard for society to defend against whatever harms may materialize."

Since its release last year, OpenAI's ChatGPT has prompted rivals to accelerate developing similar large language models and companies including Alphabet, Inc. are racing to steep their products in AI.

Investors, wary of relying on a single company, are embracing competitors to OpenAI.

Microsoft declined to comment on the letter and Alphabet did not respond to calls and emails for a comment.

"A lot of the power to develop these systems has been constantly in the hands of few companies that have the resources to do it," said Suresh Venkatasubramanian, a professor at Brown University and former assistant director in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

"That's how these models are,” said Professor Venkatasubramanian, “They're hard to build and they're hard to democratize."