A letter signed by Elon Musk demanding AI research pause sparks controversy

A letter signed by Elon Musk demanding AI research pause sparks controversy:- The statement was found to be a forged signature and the researchers condemned the use of their work.

A letter co-signed by Elon Musk and thousands of others calls for a halt to artificial intelligence research, after researchers denounced the use of their work in the letter, revealed to be fake by some of the signatories, and others criticized it. Supported. on their support.

On March 22, more than 1,800 signatories – including Musk, cognitive scientist Gary Marcus, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak – called for a six-month pause on the development of systems “more powerful” than GPT-4. Engineers from Amazon, DeepMind, Google, Meta, and Microsoft also lent their support.

Developed by OpenAI, the company co-founded by Musk and now backed by Microsoft, GPT-4 has developed the ability to conduct human-like conversations, compose songs and summarize long documents. The letter claims that such AI systems with “human-rivaling intelligence” pose a profound risk to humanity.

The letter states, “AI laboratories and independent experts should use this pause to jointly develop and implement a set of shared security protocols for advanced AI design and development, which will be rigorously audited by independent external experts.” audited and inspected.”

The Future of Life Institute, the think tank that coordinated the effort, cited 12 pieces of research from university academics as well as experts including current and former employees of OpenAI, Google, and its subsidiary DeepMind. But four experts cited in the letter expressed concern that their research was used to make such claims.

When initially launched, the letter lacked a verification protocol for signing and those who did not actually sign it included Xi Jinping and Meta’s chief AI scientist Yan Lecun, who wrote on Twitter: clarified that he did not support it.

Critics have accused the Future of Life Institute (FLI), which is primarily funded by the Musk Foundation, of prioritizing imaginative apocalyptic scenarios over more immediate concerns about AI – such as instilling racist or sexist biases in machines. is being programmed.

Among the research cited was “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots”, a famous paper co-authored by Margaret Mitchell, who previously oversaw ethical AI research at Google. Mitchell, now a chief ethical scientist at AI firm Hugging Face, criticized the letter, telling Reuters it was unclear what counted as “more powerful than GPT4″.

“Taking a lot of questionable ideas as a given, the letter asserts a set of priorities and a narrative on AI that benefits FLI’s supporters,” she said. “Ignoring active harm right now is a privilege some of us don’t have.”

His co-authors Timnit Gebru and Emily M. Bender criticized the letter on Twitter, with the latter calling some of its claims “unconvincing”.

Shiri Dory-Hakohen, an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut, also objected to her work being mentioned in the letter. She co-authored a research paper last year that argued that the widespread use of AI already poses serious risks.

His research argued that the current use of AI systems could influence decision-making regarding climate change, nuclear war, and other existential threats.

She told Reuters: “AI doesn’t need to reach human-level intelligence to mitigate those risks.”

“There are non-existent risks that are really important, but don’t get the same Hollywood level of attention.”

Asked to comment on the criticism, FLI President Max Tegmark said both the short-term and long-term risks of AI must be taken seriously. “If we quote someone, it means that we claim that they are endorsing that sentence. It does not mean that they are endorsing the letter, or that we endorse everything they say. are,” he told Reuters.

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“A letter signed by Elon Musk demanding AI research pause sparks controversy”

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Information Source:- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/31/ai-research-pause-elon-musk-chatgpt

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