Prominent scientist and AI campaigner, Max Tegmark, issues a warning at the AI Summit in Seoul, highlighting the distraction major tech companies pose to regulating artificial intelligence, which could lead to existential risks. Tegmark compares AI advancements to historical events and calls for regulatory focus on AI safety amidst industry lobbying.
At the AI Summit in Seoul, South Korea, Max Tegmark, a prominent scientist and AI campaigner, warned that major tech companies are distracting from the existential risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI). Tegmark, co-founder of the Future of Life Institute, highlighted that this diversion could delay essential regulations for AI development.
Comparing AI advancements to historical events, Tegmark referenced Enrico Fermi’s 1942 creation of the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. He suggested that AI models passing the Turing test serve as a similar warning, indicating the potential loss of control over AI.
Last year, the Future of Life Institute led a call for a six-month pause in advanced AI research following the launch of OpenAI’s GPT-4 model. Despite support from notable AI experts such as Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, the pause was not enacted. Instead, international AI regulation discussions began, starting with a summit at Bletchley Park, UK, and continuing in Seoul.
Tegmark criticized the shift in regulatory focus from existential risks to a broader array of concerns, including privacy breaches and job market disruptions. He suggested that this downplaying might be influenced by industry lobbying, comparing it to the delayed regulation of tobacco despite early evidence of its harms.
Tegmark argued that industry leaders feel unable to halt their AI advancements without government-imposed safety standards, emphasizing the need for regulatory action to ensure AI safety.
