Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and more than a thousand other tech experts have signed an open letter calling for a halt in advanced artificial intelligence (AI) development. It was published on the website of the non-profit organization Future of Life.
They urged all AI labs to postpone the training of systems more powerful than OpenAI's GPT-4 for at least six months. As the authors of the letter emphasize, AI systems that compete with human intelligence can pose “serious risks to society and humanity.” Even the creators of "powerful digital minds" cannot control them, and modern artificial intelligence systems are beginning to compete with humans, the letter says.
“We should ask ourselves: should we allow machines to flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate all work, including those that bring satisfaction? Should we develop non-human intelligences that could eventually outnumber us, outwit us, and replace us? Should we risk losing control of our civilization? Powerful artificial intelligence systems should be developed only after we are sure that their effect will be positive and the risks manageable. This confidence must be well founded and grow as the system's potential impacts increase in scale.
According to Reuters, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman did not sign the letter.
Russia commented on the letter. Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov said that work on the development of artificial intelligence (AI) will continue in the country, but regulation will be required, RBC reports .
“This work will continue… As for the point of view of those who believe that serious dangers lie in the development of artificial intelligence, you know that any medicine, if used improperly, turns into poison,” Peskov said.
In January 2023, it became known that the Russian authorities had drastically reduced spending on the development of artificial intelligence, and the assessment of the market itself had decreased by more than 10 times. This conclusion follows from the updated "road map" "Development of the high-tech direction "Artificial Intelligence" until 2030"".
The document was approved by the Ministry of Economic Development in December 2022, and in January the relevant Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko signed agreements on the implementation of the road map with its direct executors, such as Sberbank, RDIF, the Skolkovo Fund – a total of 30 funds, universities and authorities. For seven years, the Russian authorities were ready to allocate only 24.6 billion rubles for the development of AI, although in the previous version of the program with a deadline in 2024, this amount was several times higher – 56.8 billion rubles.
Private financing has also been reduced: if earlier the authorities expected investments in the amount of 334 billion rubles by 2024, now only 111 billion in the period up to 2030. However, the assessment of the potential AI market in Russia suffered the most: in the 2019 concept, it was predicted that it would reach 160 billion by 2024, but in the new roadmap, its volume fell by more than 11 times, now it is only 14 billion rubles.
