Artificial intelligence could lead to the destruction of humanity, some of the biggest names in technology have warned.
A dramatic statement signed by international experts says AI should be prioritised alongside other extinction risks such as nuclear war and pandemics.
Signatories include dozens of academics, senior bosses at companies including Google DeepMind, the co-founder of Skype, and Sam Altman, chief executive of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.
Another signatory is Geoffrey Hinton, sometimes nicknamed the ‘Godfather of AI’, who recently resigned from his job at Google, saying that ‘bad actors’ will use new AI technologies to harm others and that the tools he helped to create could spell the end of humanity.
The short statement says: ‘Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.’
Sam Altman, (pictured) chief executive of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, signed the statement alongside dozens of tech CEOs and academics
Dr Hinton, who has spent his career researching the uses of AI technology, and in 2018 received the Turing Award, recently told the New York Times the progress made in AI technology over the last five years had been ‘scary’.
He told the BBC he wanted to discuss ‘the existential risk of what happens when these things get more intelligent than us’.
The computer scientist warned that ‘given the rate of progress, we expect things to get better quite fast’.
The British-Canadian researcher added that in the ‘worst-case scenario’ a ‘bad actor like Putin’ could set AI technology loose by letting it create its own ‘sub-goals’ – including aims such as ‘I need to get more power’.
Today’s statement was published on the website of the Centre for AI Safety – a San Francisco-based non-profit organisation which aims ‘to reduce societal-scale risks from AI’.
It said AI in warfare could be ‘extremely harmful’ as it could be used to develop new chemical weapons and enhance aerial combat.
The Centre for AI Safety also warns that ‘AI-generated misinformation’ could be used to influence elections via ‘customized disinformation campaigns at scale’.
This could see countries and political parties use AI tech to ‘generate highly persuasive arguments that invoke strong emotional responses’ in order people of their ‘political beliefs, ideologies, and narratives.’
Dr Geoffrey Hinton (pictured) also signed the statement after warning AI technology poses an ‘existential risk’
It adds that widespread uptake of AI could also see society become ‘completely dependent on machines, similar to the scenario portrayed in the film WALL-E.’
This could in turn see humans become ‘economically irrelevant,’ as AI is used to automate jobs, meaning humans would have few incentives to gain knowledge or skills.’
A report from the World Economic Forum this month warned 83 million jobs will vanish by 2027 due to uptake of AI technology. Jobs including bank tellers, secretaries and postal clerks could all be replaced, the report says.
However, it also claims 69 million new jobs will be created through the emergence of AI technology.
It came as BT, earlier this month, set out plans to cut 55,000 jobs by 2030, including 10,000 because of automation through AI technology. IBM separately announced 7,800 jobs could be replaced using artificial intelligence over the next five years.
In March, investment banking giant Goldman Sachs warned that AI poses a threat to around 300 million full-times jobs across the globe, including two-thirds of all jobs in the US and Europe.
OpenAI chief Sam Altman earlier this month called on the US Congress to begin regulating AI technology, to prevent ‘significant harm to the world’.
Lord Rees, the UK’s Astronomer Royal, who signed the statement, told the Mail: ‘I worry less about some super-intelligent ‘takeover’ than about the risk of over-reliance on large-scale interconnected systems.
‘These can malfunction through hidden ‘bugs’ and breakdowns could be hard to repair.’
In March, technology experts including Elon Musk urged scientists to pause development of AI technology to ensure it does not threaten mankind
‘Large-scale failures of power-grids, the internet and so forth can cascade into catastrophic societal breakdown,’ Lord Rees said.
The warning follows a similar open letter published in March, by technology experts including billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, which urged scientists to pause the development of AI to ensure it does not threaten humankind.
AI has already been used to blur the boundaries between fact and fiction, with ‘deepfake’ photographs and videos purporting to show famous people.
In April, an AI generated image of the pope wearing a puffer jacket went viral on the internet, after being created by Chicago utility worker Pablo Xavier, 31, using Midjourney AI.
Fake images of Donald Trump being arrested in New York also spread on social media in March.
AI generated videos showing female Twitch stars in deepfake porn videos have also appeared on the internet in recent months, while a fake advert, showing podcaster Joe Rogan promoting libido enhancing pills, also spread on social media.
There are also concerns about systems developing the equivalent of a ‘mind’.
Blake Lemoine, 41, was sacked by Google last year after claiming its chatbot Lamda was ‘sentient’ and the intellectual equivalent of a human child – claims which Google said were ‘wholly unfounded’.
The engineer suggested the AI had told him it had a ‘very deep fear of being turned off’.
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