Do you support a 6-month pause on AI development?
Ever since AI was first introduced in the fifties last century, there have been concerns about how far it could go and how much of an influence it could have on humanity. Some went as far as predicting an outright war between humans and AI over resources, dominance, and control.
I think most of us watched the Matrix movie once or twice in our childhood and were surprised by the extent of science fiction it contained. But let's be honest, no one took those concerns seriously at the time. We believed we were decades or even centuries away from the point where artificial intelligence could compete with human intelligence. No one thought we were close to the point that we should fear AI at all. However, it was just last year when OpenAI introduced ChatGPT that these fears gained seriousness among people.
In case you've been living under a rock, ChatGPT is basically an AI-based chatbot that uses "natural language processing" to create humanlike conversations. It can do human tasks, write essays, songs, and even program codes. OpenAI which released ChatGPT in November last year is relentlessly continuing to develop it with further advanced versions. And with each version released, concerns go higher about its influence and impact on human jobs.
This is something that was evident in a recent "petition" published by the Future of Life Institute (FOLI), calling for a 6-month “halt” on the development of “human-competitive intelligence” models that are more powerful than GPT-4.
The petition urged people to offer signatures of support, and you might be surprised to know that tech dragons such as Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak (co-founder of Apple), and Emad Mostaque (the CEO of Stability AI) were among the early signatories. The list goes further to include many more celebrities and counts more names every day.
The authors claim that continuing to develop AI unchecked will eventually lead to the “downfall” of civilization, due to the large-scale automation of many jobs. They contend that such advances in AI technologies will lead to nothing but widespread unemployment. They fired a barrage of skeptical questions about the ongoing development of AI. Let me quote:
Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitive at general tasks,[3] and we must ask ourselves: Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete, and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?
As we all know, however, there are always two ends of the spectrum, and at the other end of it, critics have spoken out against the FOLI petition, accusing OpenAI and its allies to attempt to consolidate their dominance by building an extended innovation lead over their competitors.
They contend that such an invitation is just a deceptive move to freeze OpenAI's rivals while it continues to grab the lead over the AI industry. While this view looks like just another silly conspiracy theory, Elon Musk (the most prominent signatory of the petition) has reportedly bought about 10,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) for developing Twitter’s AI infrastructure, which is quite frankly a direct contradiction to his support of halting AI development.
Now, to be honest, I think the idea of delaying the development of AI might look wise in principle, but it's much easier said than done.
Who guarantees that superpowers like China, Russia, and the United States which have had conflicting interests over the years can trust each other now and pause the development of AI simultaneously for the common good?
If they could trust each other, they would have stopped the development of nuclear weapons, which needless to say, have far more destructive effects on humans than AI. But as we all know they just can't.
Even if these nations pledge to stop AI development publically, they will just continue doing it secretly under the table. No one will miss the opportunity of 1000x productivity, and no one will trust the other to do so. It's not utopia after all.
If you ask me, I can't say for sure how much of the fear surrounding AI is warranted. Maybe some of the concerns are valid, while others are unfounded. What I'm really sure about, however, is that such pushback is common every time we approach a revolutionary technology.
Internet, E-commerce, and our beloved crypto. They all encountered huge resistance in their early days. In case of the latter, crypto is still facing it.
History teaches us that technology keeps going up no matter what skeptics, naysayers, and critics say. I have a feeling that the same applies to AI. For better or worse, I believe it will continue to develop and advance even faster than ever before. Time doesn't turn back and that's why we got here in the first place...
What do you guys think about the proposed "pause" on AI development?
I'm keen to read your thoughts and opinions...
The AI scare is real and there's every reason to be scared. Every profession is threatened.
You're not alone in thinking this way...
I think delaying the development of AI is in Elon Musk's business interest. It includes company groups, and this may be necessary to catch up with the competition. Although he also made a statement that he was doing all this to protect the interests of society because artificial intelligence could pose a threat to people. I, on the other hand, studied the possibilities of both ChatGPT and TruthGPT, and these are quite stupid.
Hi @qsyal
Interesting choice of topic.
Indeed many preducted that outcome of AI development. I think AI would not need to destroy humans. We most likely will destroy ourselfs sooner or later.
Back to main topic of your discussion.
Oh that's very true. I believe that fear of AI actually replacing many jobs is absolutely valid.
ps.
I don't see how putting pause on AI development could be enforced all over the world. It will surely push some businesses out from US/europe. However, will those businesses stop their AI development? I hardly doubt it will happen.
Yours, Piotr
I'm glad to know that you're still around. I had some break from my activities online but it's time to be back. I enjoyed some sort of 'freedom from laptop' for way to long hehehe
Thanks for the post. I wrote about this, too, in AI: To pause or not to pause. First and foremost, IMO, it's not possible to pause. Even if some companies agree to stop, that just increases the incentive for others to continue. There's no way to enforce a worldwide pause. So, it almost doesn't matter if we should or not. I don't think we can. Pandora's box has been opened, irreversibly.
You made the same point, here:
and here:
Beyond that, since we know about the vast array of benefits from AI including health, safety, prosperity, and more, the risk of harm is not sufficiently clear to justify foregoing all of those benefits.
Finally, people imagine AI systems outcompeting humans for resources, but that's not how it would work. Humans will always be assisted by state of the art technologies, so the AIs would actually have to outcompete AI-augmented humans. I think that humans with technology assistance will always be able to outcompete AIs alone.
Could you please check out your discord @qsyal