AI experts not happy with demands on urgent research pause

Four artificial intelligence experts have expressed concern after their work was cited in an open letter – co-signed by Elon Musk – demanding an urgent pause in research, per Reuters.

The letter, dated March 22 and with more than 1,800 signatures by March 31, called for a six-month circuit-breaker in the development of systems "more powerful" than Microsoft-backed (MSFT.O) OpenAI's new GPT-4, which can hold a human-like conversation, compose songs and summarise lengthy documents.

Since GPT-4's predecessor ChatGPT was released last year, rival companies have rushed to launch similar products.

The open letter says AI systems with "human-competitive intelligence" pose profound risks to humanity, citing 12 pieces of research from experts including university academics as well as current and former employees of OpenAI, Google (GOOGL.O) and its subsidiary DeepMind.

Civil society groups in the U.S. and EU have since pressed lawmakers to rein in OpenAI's research. OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Critics have accused the Future of Life Institute (FLI), the organisation behind the letter which is primarily funded by the Musk Foundation, of prioritising imagined apocalyptic scenarios over more immediate concerns about AI, such as racist or sexist biases being programmed into the machines.

Among the research cited was "On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots", a well-known 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, criticised the letter, telling Reuters it was unclear what counted as "more powerful than GPT4".

"By treating a lot of questionable ideas as a given, the letter asserts a set of priorities and a narrative on AI that benefits the supporters of FLI," she said. "Ignoring active harms right now is a privilege that some of us don't have."

Her co-authors Timnit Gebru and Emily M. Bender criticised the letter on Twitter, with the latter branding some of its claims "unhinged".

FLI president Max Tegmark told Reuters the campaign was not an attempt to hinder OpenAI’s corporate advantage.

"It's quite hilarious. I've seen people say, 'Elon Musk is trying to slow down the competition,'" he said, adding that Musk had no role in drafting the letter. "This is not about one company."