This March, almost 35,000 AI researchers, technologists, entrepreneurs, and anxious residents signed an open letter from the nonprofit Future of Life Institute that referred to as for a “pause” on AI growth, as a result of dangers to humanity revealed within the capabilities of packages reminiscent of ChatGPT.

“Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitive at general tasks, and we must ask ourselves … Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us?”

I may nonetheless be confirmed flawed, however virtually six months later and with AI growth quicker than ever, civilization hasn’t crumbled. Heck, Bing Chat, Microsoft’s “revolutionary,” ChatGPT-infused search oracle, hasn’t even displaced Google because the chief in search. So what ought to we make of the letter and similar sci-fi warnings backed by worthy names in regards to the dangers posed by AI?

Two enterprising college students at MIT, Isabella Struckman and Sofie Kupiec, reached out to the primary hundred signatories of the letter calling for a pause on AI growth to study extra about their motivations and considerations. The duo’s write-up of their findings reveals a broad array of views amongst those that put their title to the doc. Despite the letter’s public reception, comparatively few had been truly frightened about AI posing a looming menace to humanity itself.

Many of the folks Struckman and Kupiec spoke to didn’t consider a six-month pause would occur or would have a lot impact. Most of those that signed didn’t envision the “apocalyptic scenario” that one nameless respondent acknowledged some elements of the letter evoked.

A major variety of those that signed had been, it appears, primarily involved with the tempo of competitors between Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, and others, as hype across the potential of AI instruments like ChatGPT reached giddy heights. Google was the unique developer of a number of algorithms key to the chatbot’s creation, however it moved comparatively slowly until ChatGPT-mania took hold. To these folks, the prospect of corporations dashing to launch experimental algorithms with out exploring the dangers was a trigger for concern—not as a result of they could wipe out humanity however as a result of they could unfold disinformation, produce dangerous or biased recommendation, or enhance the affect and wealth of already very highly effective tech corporations.

Some signatories additionally frightened in regards to the extra distant risk of AI displacing staff at hitherto unseen pace. And a quantity additionally felt that the assertion would assist draw the general public’s consideration to important and shocking leaps within the efficiency of AI fashions, maybe pushing regulators into taking some kind of motion to handle the near-term dangers posed by advances in AI.

Back in May, I spoke to a couple of those that signed the letter, and it was clear that they didn’t all agree solely with every thing it mentioned. They signed out of a sense that the momentum constructing behind the letter would draw consideration to the varied dangers that frightened them, and was due to this fact price backing.