A new open letter surfaced online via the Future of Life Institute, and it is a call to all artificial intelligence developers in the world to temporarily pause their development of deep learning technology. This letter claims that there should be a minimum of six months for companies to step away from their development, particularly to training AIs beyond GPT-4.
The letter was backed by more than 1,300 signatories already, and there are many familiar names on the list.
Open Letter to Pause AI Developments Signed by Tech Moguls
The open letter found on the Future of Life Institute calls upon AI developers to temporarily pause their experiments on artificial intelligence, with a minimum of six months to start. The letter claims that anything beyond GPT-4, the latest technology from OpenAI, should be set aside for now as there are significant risks or dangers present in this rapidly-growing field.
Tech moguls and massive names in technology show their agreement and support by backing or signing this open letter addressed to tech companies developing AI. It includes the likes of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak; Tesla, Twitter, and SpaceX CEO and billionaire Elon Musk; Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque; GettyImages CEO Craig Peters; Pinterest co-Founder Evan Sharp, and more.
The tech leaders are also joined by academics from renowned schools and institutions in the world.
Why Does the Tech Industry Want to Halt AI Development?
"As stated in the widely-endorsed Asilomar AI Principles, Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources. Unfortunately, this level of planning and management is not happening, even though recent months 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," reads the letter.
The concern centers on the unprecedented dangers of AI, and if not managed properly, may spiral out of control, take over the world, and harm the public.
AI Development and its Massive Growth Now
Undoubtedly, AI is one of the fast-emerging and growing fields in the world right now, and this was because of the significance brought by ChatGPT and OpenAI in their latest developments. The company recently brought plug-ins for the chatbot, and it allows users to add their preferred services, with the capability to connect to the internet in real time.
Alongside the plug-ins, OpenAI also debuted the next-generation large language model of the company, GPT-4, the update to its previous GPT-3 model released in 2020. The more advanced and capable language model is what powers Bing's AI in the present, alongside Microsoft's Office Copilot, and other experiences which demonstrate its power and capabilities to the public.
Companies like Midjourney also released their latest development to generative AI, highlighting the deep learning technology's capabilities to grow to unprecedented heights.
With all that being said, AI is a growing industry that experts, academics, and executives consider regulating, especially as there are significant dangers should it be left unmonitored.
The latest open letter addresses this, centering on the call to AI-developing companies to temporarily halt their advancements, for better planning and use of the products worldwide.
Read also: Microsoft Security Copilot: GPT-4 Powered Assistant to Help with Safety-What You Need to Know
