Experts raise alarm over AI increasing risk of extinction

A number of scientists and tech industry leaders, including Geoffrey Hinton – a computer scientist called the ‘godfather of artificial intelligence’ – and Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, issued a new warning Tuesday about the risks AI poses to humankind.

A statement posted on the Center for AI Safety’s website highlighted the need to make “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI” an international priority alongside nuclear war, pandemics, and other societal-scale risks.

Concerns over AI systems outsmarting us and running wild have been deepening ever since the rise of highly capable AI chatbots such as ChatGPT.

Countries across the globe are being seen scrambling to introduce new regulations for the developing technology, with the EU potentially leading in the race with its AI Act likely to be approved this year.

Earlier this year, Elon Musk and scores of other technologists and researchers had signed a much longer letter calling for a voluntary six-month pause on AI development. The letter was a response to GPT-4, a new AI model released by OpenAI.

But leaders at the company, its partner Microsoft and rival Google rejected the call.

By contrast, the statement posted this week was endorsed by Microsoft’s chief technology and science officers, as well as Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google’s AI research lab DeepMind, and two Google executives who lead its AI policy efforts.

Experts in climate change, nuclear science, and pandemics have also signed the letter. Among the several signatories is Bill McKibben, who raised alarms over global warming in his book ‘The End of Nature’ released in 1989.

The writer had also warned the world about artificial intelligence two decades ago in another book.