With criticism of ChatGPT much in the news, we are also increasingly hearing about disagreements among thinkers who are critical of A.I. While debating about such an important issue is natural and expected, we can’t allow differences to paralyze our very ability to make progress on A.I. ethics at this pivotal time. Today, I fear that those who should be natural allies across the tech/business, policy, and academic communities are instead increasingly at each other’s throats. When the field of A.I. ethics appears divided, it becomes easier for vested interests to brush aside ethical considerations altogether.
Such disagreements need to be understood in the context of how we reached the current moment of excitement around the rapid advances in large language models and other forms of generative A.I.
