Scientists and tech leaders sign open letter to prioritize 'mitigating the risk of extinction from AI'

30 May 2023

Hundreds of experts, scientists, and technology leaders signed an open letter on Tuesday warning of the existential perils that rapid advances in artificial intelligence pose to civilization.

"AI experts, journalists, policymakers, and the public are increasingly discussing a broad spectrum of important and urgent risks from AI. Even so, it can be difficult to voice concerns about some of advanced AI’s most severe risks. The succinct statement below aims to overcome this obstacle and open up discussion. It is also meant to create common knowledge of the growing number of experts and public figures who also take some of advanced AI’s most severe risks seriously," the Center for AI Safety's proclamation says.

"Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI," it continues, "should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war."

Center for AI Safety Director Dan Hendrycks also released a statement.

"It's not too early to put guardrails in place and set up institutions so that AI risks don't catch us off guard," Hendrycks said.

According to Forbes, Hendrycks explained that "increasing societal concern about the potential impacts of AI is reminiscent of what happened in the early days of nuclear power."

Hendrycks further stressed that "we need to be having the conversations that nuclear scientists were having before the creation of the atomic bomb." He added that "the AI industry and governments around the world . . . seriously confront the risk that future AI could pose a threat to human existence."

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