More than a thousand industry experts, including Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak, have urged a six-month pause on training language models more powerful than OpenAI’s GPT-4.<\/p>\n
The Future of Life Institute’s open letter<\/a>, signed by scientists, entrepreneurs and independent researchers, urges a six-month pause on training language models more powerful than OpenAI’s GPT-4. Experts say that the development of advanced AI should be paused until universal safety protocols for such systems exist.<\/p>\n “Powerful AI systems should be developed only when we are confident that their effects will be positive and the risks manageable,” the statement said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The letter outlines potential threats to society and civilization from competitive AI systems. They include economic and political upheavals.<\/p>\n They also urged developers to cooperate with regulators.<\/p>\n “The letter isn’t perfect, but the spirit is right: we need to slow down until we better understand the ramifications,” said Gary Marcus, an honorary professor at New York University and a signer of the letter.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The scientist warns that large language models could harm many people.<\/p>\n “Large players are becoming increasingly opaque about what they do, which makes it harder to shield society from any harm that may materialize,” Marcus added.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Industry concern has grown amid the rapid development of large language models and chatbots built on them. Since the announcement<\/a> of ChatGPT in November 2022, tech giants and startups have entered a new AI race.<\/p>\n In February, Microsoft<\/a> and Google<\/a>, one after another, unveiled search services based on conversational algorithms.<\/p>\n In March, OpenAI opened<\/a> access to the API<\/span> for ChatGPT, which allowed dozens of companies to integrate the chatbot into their own applications.<\/p>\n Over the past two months, Microsoft has rolled out a range of AI features based on OpenAI’s technology across its products, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, GitHub, Bing, Dynamics and Azure.<\/p>\n In March, Europol warned about threats<\/a> from ChatGPT.<\/p>\n In the same month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged the risks<\/a> associated with the chatbot.<\/p>\n\n
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