In March 2023 an open letter was written, now signed by over 30,000 people, calling on all AI labs to pause the training of AI systems (more powerful than GPT-4) for 6 months. The rationale was to use this time to develop a set of shared safety protocols.
You can read the open letter here – Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter
Among its key signatories were; Yoshua Bengio, Stuart Russell, Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak and Max Tegmark.
Whilst no formal ‘pause’ has taken place, it’s certainly started the conversation. Here, in a conversation hosted by Reuters; Max Tegmark, Stuart Russell and Gaia Dempsey consider the ongoing need for an ‘AI Pause’.
I’ve already argued for the need for more people to be involved in AI ethics, not least pastors and theologians. Dempsey favours a multi-displinary approach:
“We need a much more multi-displinary, democratic style discussion around the future of AI systems and how we want them to work.”
Tegmark also recently spoke to the Guardian on this topic:
“AI-focused tech firms locked in ‘race to the bottom’, warns MIT professor”
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