AI ‘could wipe out humanity,’ some of the biggest names in technology warn

Artificial intelligence could lead to the destruction of humanity, some of the biggest names in technology have warned.

A dramatic statement signed by international experts says AI should be prioritized alongside other extinction risks such as nuclear war and pandemics.

Signatories include dozens of academics, senior bosses at companies like Google DeepMind, the co-founder of Skype, and Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI.

Another signatory is Geoffrey Hinton, dubbed the “Godfather of AI,” who recently resigned from his job at Google, saying that “bad actors” will use new AI technologies to harm others and that the tools he has help create could mean the end. of humanity.

The brief statement read: “Reducing the risk of AI extinction should be a global priority, alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

Dr. Hinton, who has spent his career researching the use of AI technology and was awarded the Turing Award in 2018, recently told the New York Times that the progress made in AI technology over the past five years, “ scary’ was.

He told the BBC he wanted to talk about “the existential risk of what happens when these things become more intelligent than us.”

The computer scientist warned that “given the pace of progress, we expect things to get better pretty soon.”

The British-Canadian researcher added that in the “worst case scenario,” a “bad actor like Putin” could unleash AI technology by allowing it to create its own “subgoals” — including goals like “I need to get more power.” ‘.

Today’s statement was published on the website of the Center for AI Safety – a San Francisco-based non-profit organization that aims to “reduce the societal risks of AI.”

It said AI in warfare could be “extremely harmful” as it could be used to develop new chemical weapons and improve aerial combat.

The Center for AI Safety also warns that “AI-generated disinformation” could be used to influence elections through “tailored disinformation campaigns at scale.”

This could lead countries and political parties to use AI technology to “generate highly persuasive arguments that provoke strong emotional responses” to order people by their “political beliefs, ideologies and narratives.”

It adds that widespread adoption of AI could also cause society to become “entirely dependent on machines, similar to the scenario portrayed in the movie WALL-E.”

This, in turn, could lead to people becoming ‘economically irrelevant’ as AI is used to automate jobs, meaning people have little incentive to gain knowledge or skills.”

A report from the World Economic Forum this month warned that 83 million jobs will disappear by 2027 due to the introduction of AI technology. Jobs such as bank clerks, secretaries and postal clerks could all be replaced, the report said.

However, it also claims that 69 million new jobs will be created by the rise of AI technology.

It came as BT earlier this month announced plans to cut 55,000 jobs by 2030, 10,000 of them due to automation through AI technology. IBM separately announced that 7,800 jobs could be replaced over the next five years with the help of artificial intelligence.

In March, investment banking giant Goldman Sachs threatens about 300 million full-time jobs around the world, including two-thirds of all jobs in the US and Europe.

OpenAI chief Sam Altman earlier this month called on the US Congress to begin regulating AI technology to prevent “significant harm to the world.”

Lord Rees, Britain’s Astronomer Royal, who signed the statement, told the Mail: ‘I am less concerned about some super-intelligent ‘takeover’ than I am about the risk of over-reliance on large-scale interconnected systems.

“These can fail due to hidden ‘bugs’ and failures can be difficult to repair.”

“Large-scale outages of power grids, the internet and so on could lead to catastrophic social collapse,” said Lord Rees.

The warning follows a similar open letter published in March by technology experts, including billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who urged scientists to pause AI development to ensure it does not threaten humanity.

AI has already been used to blur the lines between fact and fiction, with “deepfake” photos and videos supposedly showing famous people.

In April, an AI-generated image of the pope in a puffer jacket went viral on the internet after it was created by Pablo Xavier, 31, a Chicago utility worker, using Midjourney AI.

False images of Donald Trump’s arrest in New York also spread on social media in March.

AI-generated videos featuring female Twitch stars in deepfake porn videos have also surfaced on the internet in recent months, while a fake ad, showing podcaster Joe Rogan promoting libido-enhancing pills, has also been circulating on social media.

There are also concerns about systems developing the equivalent of a “mind.”

Blake Lemoine, 41, was fired from Google last year after claiming that its chatbot Lamda was “sentient” and the intellectual equivalent of a human child – claims that Google said were “entirely baseless.”

The engineer suggested that the AI ​​had told him he was “deeply afraid of being knocked out.”