Sir, – When big tech leaders say we need to slow down the development of artificial intelligence (AI) then we should heed those warnings (“OpenAI boss and Elon Musk back calls to put brakes on ‘reckless’ AI development”, News, September 13th).
Advances in AI could affect every aspect of our lives. That its development could cause “human extinction by 2030” and is a “threat to humanity” is not scaremongering by those in the know, but a real warning that all is not well in the world of big tech. It has become a victim of its own success.
If the chief executive of Anthropic says we need to slow down the pace of AI, then governments need to find ways to regulate it, with more oversight and consultation.
Donald Trump’s dismissal of this warning is typical of someone who has no insight into the dangers posed by this form of progressive tech. The fact that AI has progressed faster than what was originally predicted, and is in some cases overriding its own guardrails, is truly worrying.
Jacob Coxon, who resigned from Anthropic, stated that people building AI “earnestly believe it could kill us all by the end of the decade” and that “no other human activity poses this level of danger”.
Dario Amodei, chief executive of Anthropic, has written that “we must pace the frontier” of AI development, warning that “left unchecked, it could outrun our ability to understand and control these systems”.
That it could take over the internet in six to 12 months is truly shocking and could cause immeasurable damage worldwide.
This is not some guy walking around with a placard suggesting “the end is nigh”, these are big tech players who, it seems, have lost control of their own products and don’t know how to put the genie back in the bottle. – Yours, etc,
CHRISTY GALLIGAN,
Letterkenny,
Co Donegal.