One of the headlines in the Guardian read: “Elon Musk calls for a pause in the development of AI.” The BBC headline was: “Elon Musk Among Experts Calling for AI Pause.” Elon Musk and others are calling for an end to AI, citing a “danger to society,” writes Reuters. These are not good headlines. The former richest man in the world has expressed or espoused very strange views in the past on everything from Covid vaccines to what freedom of speech means and from every wacky Twitter conspiracy theory to saving those cave kids in Thailand. Although he is a successful businessman and one of the original sponsors of the company that later created ChatGPT, his involvement in public affairs in recent years does not make him a reliable source of evidence-based opinion.

And that’s a shame, because the news these headlines referred to is important. He was referring to an open letter published by the Future of Life Institute, a non-governmental organization that researches the future of humanity and, in particular, the risks posed to our species by four areas: climate change, nuclear weapons, biotechnology and, of course, artificial intelligence. IN letter Members of the Institute, while acknowledging the rapid development of tools such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and others that have emerged in recent times, point out the dangers of the uncontrolled and too rapid development of computing systems (“digital minds,” as they call them), which they work in such a way that their creators themselves cannot understand or control. “Strong AI systems should only be developed when we can be sure that their effects will be positive and the risks manageable,” the authors of the letter write, ending with the following request: “We ask all laboratories researching artificial intelligence to immediately stop training systems AI is more powerful than GPT-4 for at least six months.” Indeed, if companies cannot implement it immediately, “the government will have to step in,” they write. Is this unprecedented and somewhat maximalist request real? Are the fears of the experts who signed the letter exaggerated?

How can we, non-experts who watch and read, appreciate this? Perhaps the people who signed the letter, by their authority and experience, give us an idea of ​​the seriousness of the case. The news was focused on the name of Elon Musk or Apple co-founder Greg Wozniak, but the letter is also signed by many others, including renowned writer Yuval Harari and Skype co-founder Ian Talin (who aren’t experts either, but it’s good to take it more seriously than Elon Musk ) and, above all, some others, much more competent, such as the British professor Stuart Russell, who wrote one of the two best popular books on artificial intelligence that I have read (“Human Compatibility: AI and the Problem of Control and the Swedish professor Max Tegmark, who wrote another (“Life 3.0”). It is impossible to predict the future, and it is very difficult to realistically assess the risks of developing machines that we cannot control. But if Max Tegmark and Stuart Russell, serious people, not Luddites, are calling for a moratorium on technological development, we non-specialists should listen carefully. Even if Elon Musk agrees with them.