Ride the Lightning

Tech Leaders Warn that AI Could Cause Human Extinction

June 1, 2023

Cheery headline, isn’t it? Forbes reported on May 30 that some major tech leaders and experts have said that we need to tackle the “risk of extinction” presented by artificial intelligence. They placed this goal as a global priority equal to avoiding catastrophic events like nuclear war.

A statement was published by the U.S.-based nonprofit the Center for AI Safety, which works to reduce society-level risks associated with AI by conducting safety research and advocating for safety standards.

The one-sentence statement read, “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

The letter has been signed by some high-profile executives and experts working in the field, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Demis Hassabis and Dario Amodei.

Experts from Google and Microsoft signed, as well as noted computer experts and AI pioneers Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton.

Interestingly, executives from Meta, a big player in AI and the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, have not signed the statement.

“It’s not too early to put guardrails in place and set up institutions so that AI risks don’t catch us off guard,” said Dan Hendrycks, director of the Center for AI Safety, in a statement accompanying the 22-word warning.

Hendrycks said increasing societal concern about the potential impacts of AI is reminiscent of what happened in the early days of nuclear power and that “we need to be having the conversations that nuclear scientists were having before the creation of the atomic bomb.”

I have asked ChatGPT multiple times if AI could lead to a dystopian future – it has always acknowledged that possibility.

I do worry that many of the AI experts who want AI regulation also want to be part of shaping that regulation, no doubt to their own benefit and with the regulations not impeding the vast profits that AI is producing.

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
3975 University Drive, Suite 225, Fairfax, VA 22030
Email:  Phone: 703-359-0700
Digital Forensics/Cybersecurity/Information Technology
https://senseient.com
https://twitter.com/sharonnelsonesq
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharondnelson
https://amazon.com/author/sharonnelson