AI Ethicists Slam 'AI Pause' Letter For Ignoring Current Harms
Well-known AI ethicists have slammed a letter signed by Steve Wozniak and Elon Musk that asked for a six-month “pause” on the development of artificial intelligence, saying(Opens in a new window) that it only focuses on the hypothetical future threats that it poses rather than the real harms AI is having today.
The Musk co-signed open letter, which cited the disruptive consequences AI could unleash on society, and called for AI labs to immediately pause” the training of systems more powerful than GPT-4, Open AI’s latest artificial intelligence system, was accused by ethicists in an open letter reply(Opens in a new window) as being in the thrall of “longtermism.”
“Those hypothetical risks are the focus of a dangerous ideology called longtermism that ignores the actual harms resulting from the deployment of AI systems today,” the reply continued.
The rebuke was signed by Timnit Gebru, Emily M.Bender, Angelina McMIllan-Major, and Margaret Mitchell, all from the DAIR Insitute, a new research company dedicated to studying and preventing AI-associated dangers.
The “actual harms” caused by AI today include worker exploitation, data theft, and fake media that supports current power structures and their further concentration in fewer hands, the counter-signatories said.
The rebuke also pointed to how police had used facial recognition companies and databases like Clearview AI to charge an innocent man(Opens in a new window).
The open letter response said: “The current race towards ever larger “AI experiments” is not a preordained path where our only choice is how fast to run, but rather a set of decisions driven by the profit motive. The actions and choices of corporations must be shaped by regulation which protects the rights
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