Steve Paikin: In March of 2023, an open letter was released by technology leaders calling for a six-month pause on AI development. Elon Musk signed it, as did Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. It said, in part:
AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity…recent months have seen AI labs locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever-more powerful digital minds that no one — not even their creators — can understand, predict or reliably control.
Soon after, Geoffrey Hinton, known as the Godfather of AI, announced his resignation from Google, saying: “Look at how it was five years ago and how it is now. Take the difference. Propagate it forwards. That’s scary.” Gillian, how would you characterize this moment in history for AI?
Gillian Hadfield: I think we are at a real inflection point in thinking about AI. As you pointed out, we are seeing tremendous advances. What we saw in the fall of 2022 with ChatGPT was exciting and new, and I think people are now saying, ‘Hey folks, maybe we’re going a bit too fast. Maybe there’s a lot more happening here than we’ve understood.’ I think that’s what the pause letter is about.
SP: Pedro, what is your view on this?
Pedro Domingos: I don’t think we’re going too fast at all. In fact, I don’t think we’re going fast enough. If AI is going to do things like cure cancer, do we want to have the cure years from now or yesterday? What is the point of a six-month moratorium? To me, that letter is a piece of hysteria. The bigger worry for me — and most AI researchers — is not that AI will exterminate us, it’s that a lot of harm will be done by putting in restrictions, regulations and moratoria that are not needed.
SP: Jérémie, what’s your take?
It’s clear that we’ve taken some significant steps towards human-level AI — in the last three years in particular. So much so that we have many of the world’s top AI researchers, including two out of three of its earliest pioneers, wondering aloud about it. I
