Why We Need A Pause In Super Intelligent AI Development
A few very wealthy people have decided to change everything we all take for granted in the world for better or very possibly for worse. Human level artificial general intelligence (AGI) is coming in a few years because a small number powerful corporations like Microsoft and OpenAI and few wealthy individuals like Sam Altman and Mark Zuckerberg have decided that their ability to develop AGI gives them the right to do it. They are wrong about that. AGI is going to be the most powerful, world transforming technology we have ever created (by far) because it will create human level computers that are able to “think” with inhuman speed and accuracy. They will be able to do in hours the work that would take a human scientist or engineer years. This is the secret of AGI’s power to change the world.
World Pause Coalition News
WE ARE HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE
OUR NEW PROTEST DATE!
MAY 21ST @ ANTHROPIC HEADQUARTERS!
The WPC is organizing a protest in San Francisco for MAY 21ST!
If you are in the Bay area and can come, please email us, or
Visit our Event Page: https://fb.me/e/1FTGqesyw
It will change everything in a few months, maybe a year or two, maybe a lot less. It might make your life better, and it might literally end your life. Most experts, including Sam Altman himself, think there is a small to medium chance AGI could lead to the extinction of the human race. You need to think about that for a moment. A lot of them actually believe there is chance greater than 0 that AGI will kill everyone. Why these experts believe this is possible is complicated, but in fact many of them do think there is a real possibility of AGI leading to the death of every human being in the world.
It is completely crazy that a few people can to decide to pursue research that might end up killing everyone on the planet by their OWN admission. No one has the right to put anyone else in danger because of their research, let alone everyone in the world. Power and wealth do not give anyone the right to make life or death decisions for others. Sam Altman and the rest have no right to impose such a dangerous possibility on anyone else. But right now, there are practically no real legal restrictions on what AI companies can do. They can legally plunge ahead with this research, believe it or not. That needs to change. We need time to understand the full dangers of AGI. Congress needs time to wake up and act.
We need to Pause AI at our current level to give us time to compare the dangers and benefits of AGI to the benefits we are already getting and will soon be getting from our existing advanced AI such as ChatGPT-4 or Claude 3. Surprisingly to many, we are on track already to receive tremendous benefits from AI, right now, without ever having to take the risks of developing AGI. We are using our current AI to create all sorts of wonderful new things. New products. New medical treatments and new drugs for cancer, heart diseases and many other conditions. We are going to reap a thousand benefits from todays AI without ever having to move on to AGI.
Everyone deserves to have a say in their future. It is unfair and undemocratic for a few powerful people like Sam Altman and Marc Andreessen to literally decide the fate of the world all by themselves. We need to take some time and Pause in our rush to AGI to think about these things. Is it really true that current AI has advanced to the point where we are making intelligent robots, self-driving vehicles, and drug discovery AI that is helping us find new ways of treating and soon, curing cancer? The answer is yes! to all of these questions.
On the other hand, it is equally true that AGI holds many potential dangers for us. How exactly do you control a super intelligent machine that can think thousands of time faster than you? Advanced chess playing computers beat the best human players in chess 100 percent of the time right now. If we build super intelligent AI, it will beat us in everything else as well, including strategy and sheer cunning. It is literally insane to continue to build AGI until we figure out a safe way to do it. If we Pause now, we get to safely enjoy the all rewards our current state of the art AI is producing in every area of science and life. A few billionaires do not have the right to decide our fate. We do. Let’s take some time to think this out and Pause while we do. AGI will not go anywhere. We have literally nothing to lose by Pausing. Choose to Pause and consider our options.