According to a recent open letter, society needs to immediately pause development of “giant” AI models, or risk apocalyptic outcomes. Massive job losses, the destruction of consensus reality and even the end of all organic life on Earth have all been mooted as risks of pressing forward with development of these systems before we understand their intricacies.
The high-water mark of these is GPT-4, the snappily named AI that underpins the latest version of the breakthrough ChatGPT service. Creating anything more powerful than GPT-4, before we spend at least six months working out its limits and risks, would be too dangerous, more than 1,000 AI experts say.
