Tech News

Tech Giants Are Begging AI Developers to Slow Down

Senior leaders such as Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak want a pause on AI system development.

Dear Readers,

This is not an AI-Written story but I decided to post it to the Lampshade of Illumination as it is about the crazy world of artificial intelligence concerning leaders in the field. My aim is to create awareness on this important issue affecting our lives.

The Global Alarm Bells on Proliferation of AI-Generated Content

According to various sources on social media, recently, an open letter signed by more than 1,100 leading figures in the tech industry, including Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and the CEO of Stability AI, Emad Mostaque, was published by the Future of Life Institute.

The letter called for a six-month “pause” on developing advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems, including ChatGPT.

The signatories argue that AI systems with human-competitive intelligence pose profound risks to society and humanity.

Recent developments have seen AI labs locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one, not even their creators, can understand, predict, or reliably control.

The letter suggests that the tech industry should pause for thought before developing anything more powerful than GPT-4. Governments should institute a moratorium if the industry does not enact this voluntarily.

The signatories are a mix of academic and technology leaders, such as Evan Sharp (co-founder of Pinterest), Chris Larson, (co-founder of Ripple), deep learning expert Yoshua Bengio, and Connor Leahy (the CEO of AI lab Conjecture).

While some may suggest that many signatories are merely attempting to catch up with the competition, others have nothing immediately to gain. Furthermore, it is undeniable that explosive developments have occurred in the past few months in the realm of large GPT-style AI models.

For example, OpenAI’s GPT models have evolved rapidly. While the first GPT-3 model, as seen in ChatGPT, was limited to text input and output, GPT-4 is multi-modal, supporting text, audio, video, and images.

New plugins quickly developed, giving the models “eyes” and “ears,” allowing AI models to send emails, execute code, and perform tasks in the real world, such as booking flights through internet access.

GPT-4’s reasoning abilities are also a significant step up on ChatGPT and GPT-3, scoring in the top 90% in US law examinations, while ChatGPT scored in the bottom 10%.

GPT-4 has now been used to create Google Chrome extensions and iPhone apps, the latter from scratch and now available on the official app store. GPT-4 has also successfully coded a basic 3D game engine akin to the original Doom.

Some have even tasked GPT models with creating investment strategies and then implementing them. These models can rapidly have a major impact on the real world, even before considering the question of what happens if they become sentient.

In a paper written by the creators of GPT-4, concerns were raised that the model itself could develop and pursue undesirable or hazardous ends, such as creating and acting on long-term plans, accruing power and resources (“powerseeking”), and exhibiting behavior that is increasingly “agentic.”

“Agentic” in this context does not intend to humanize language models or refer to sentience but rather refers to systems characterized by the ability to accomplish goals that may not have been concretely specified and have not appeared in training, focus on achieving specific, quantifiable objectives, and do long-term planning. Some evidence already exists of such emergent behavior in models.

Meanwhile, Microsoft claims its latest GPT-4 model shows “sparks” of artificial general intelligence.

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) refers to the hypothetical ability of an artificial intelligence system to learn and understand any intellectual task that a human being can.

Unlike specialized AI systems designed for specific tasks, an AGI system would be capable of adapting to new situations, applying knowledge learned in one domain to another, and reasoning abstractly about complex problems.

Developing AGI is considered by many researchers to be the ultimate goal of artificial intelligence, as it would represent a major step forward in developing intelligent machines that can perform a wide range of tasks in diverse settings without being programmed explicitly for them.

The main issue is that these models are being unleashed at scale on the public, from Bing searches to email and office tools.

I read an article about the risks of artificial superintelligence authored by Dr Mehmet Yildiz last year. The story raises alarm bells about the growth of uncontrolled AI systems.

While it may all be fine, the scope for unintended consequences currently looks almost infinite. It is scary, with the usual provisions that we welcome whatever new overlords may emerge.

I recently used ChatGPT and wrote a story about my experience. It was published in the Lampshade of Illumination, a new publication supporting AI writing on Medium. Here is the link if you are interested in it.

Final Words

The call for a six-month pause on developing advanced AI systems is driven by a desire to ensure that AI development proceeds safely and responsibly.

While the signatories acknowledge the potential benefits of AI, they believe that caution is necessary to prevent unintended consequences and protect society as a whole.

I also read a new story after writing this article about this issue posted by Forbes.

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With that being said, thank you for reading my post, and have a good one.

About Me

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