Does artificial superintelligence really pose a risk greater than nuclear weapons? Is there a significant chance of “a Chornobyl-sized catastrophe”. Might there even be a greater than 10% chance that AI could “kill all humans” in the next decade? Robert Booth, technology editor of The Guardian, asks himself.
These warnings were issued on both sides of the Atlantic about the potential impact of a technology that most people still think of as a more talkative search engine. Some of the threats were raised in the UK as MPs and peers began to wrestle with the danger of AI outperforming human capabilities. The nuclear warnings came from Des Browne, a former defence secretary, and Prof Stuart Russell, an eminent Berkeley computer scientist. Beatrice Fihn, who won the 2017 Nobel peace prize for leading the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, told parliamentarians: “It is not the first time we’re confronted with abilities that could end up killing us all.”
a senior employee at Anthropic admitted he believed there was a greater than 10% chance the technology could “kill all humans” in the next decade and warned that his AI company did not have a plan to ensure ASI was aligned, meaning it did no harm. Predictions for when ASI might be reached vary from several years to more than a decade.
Evan Hubinger, alignment science lead at Anthropic, posted the comment after Jacob Coxon, a 28-year-old researcher at the San Francisco company and previously at OpenAI, resigned, claiming “neither company was acting responsibly”. He said they were “gambling with our lives”. Coxon said the risks at Anthropic were well understood but they were “locked in a race to get there first”. In a glimmer of hope, he added that he was optimistic about the potential for coordination between US labs on pacing their progress in the race.
Anthropic has been approached for comment on the issue. OpenAI pointed to a statement from its chief scientist, Jakub Pachocki, who said last week: “International coordination on future AI development needs to become a top priority for governments around the world.”
Bernie Sanders ratcheted up his AI safety campaign this week by again calling on Congress to regulate the technology. He pointed to polling suggesting that 81% of Americans believed their politicians should take action. He said: “We can’t allow a handful of greedy people to play God and determine the future of humanity – our economy, environment, democracy, privacy and more – without public input.”
Sandra Wachter, a professor at the Oxford Internet Institute, said she did not believe in “Terminator scenarios” but that AI posed real threats including its environmental impact, spreading of misinformation and replacing jobs. “These problems are real and urgent and need addressing now,” she said. “Terminator scenarios are a big distraction from real issues.”
Gary Marcus, an AI industry commentator and academic, said: “There is a difference between superintelligence that is aligned (if such a thing is possible) and superintelligence that is not.“It is at least conceivable that the former might be net positive. So far we have neither, but a superabundance of hype combined with a striking lack of prudence on OpenAI’s part has gotten us where we are, with intense mistrust all around.”
Yann LeCun on Le Nouvel Obs, argues that tech billionaires use “AI panic” as a strategy to secure monopoly-style control over the market.
