Pause The AI Mad Dash!

In a desperate call for sanity, many top tech leaders including Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak appear to have appealed to Governments across the world to stop the madness that the race of Artificial Intelligence tools has become, or at least pause it for the next 6 months.

Look at where we are proceeding:

(1) Huge job losses predicted across the world because of AI: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/29/tech/chatgpt-ai-automation-jobs-impact-intl-hnk/index.html

(2) People are taking their lives talking to AI: https://vice.com/en/article/pkadgm/man-dies-by-suicide-after-talking-with-ai-chatbot-widow-says

(3) Deep fakes are becoming so disruptive that services had to be stopped: https://theverge.com/2023/3/30/23662940/deepfake-viral-ai-misinformation-midjourney-stops-free-trials

Can we just take a pause, breathe, and think about where we are heading as humanity? In the race for technological supremacy, are we digging our own graves faster?

If not think of it so dramatically, at least can we think if we have enough safety measures put in place before we launch the rocket that AI has become? Otherwise, there is a serious risk of people losing more than their jobs.

The latest call is for:

- “immediate pause” on the “training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4” for at least six months

- that this pause be “public and verifiable”

- “key actors” in the tech industry to jointly develop and implement a “set of shared safety protocols for advanced AI design”

- the safeguards should be “rigorously audited and overseen by independent outside experts”

- introduce liability for AI-caused harm

However, there is also news coming up now, that this letter calling for pause is not real.

Whether it is real or not, it is clear as daylight for anyone sane that there is a need for such a pause in this AI race.

Let’s hope we don’t rush ourselves into doomsday, the Terminator-style.