Sign up now to receive free updates on Artificial intelligence! Stay informed with our myFT Daily Digest email, delivering the latest news on AI every morning. But what exactly are the risks associated with AI? While AI has been around for quite some time, concerns about its power have always existed. It’s been over 25 years since IBM’s Deep Blue defeated chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, and since then, AI has only become more sophisticated and capable. However, recent advancements in AI have caused alarm among technologists and prompted regulators worldwide to take action. There is growing fear that if AI continues to develop as it is, it could eliminate countless jobs and reshape society. The launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November last year played a significant role in the surge of interest and fears surrounding AI. Within a span of two months, 100 million users were utilizing the chatbot, making it the fastest adopted consumer application in history. Users marveled at the extraordinary power of ChatGPT, which displayed human-like qualities such as creativity, reasoning abilities, and even a sense of humor. This marked a significant milestone towards achieving artificial general intelligence—a system capable of performing any human task and generating new scientific knowledge. The release of ChatGPT also triggered an arms race between major tech companies and venture capitalists who are investing tens of billions of dollars to develop powerful chatbots based on large language models. Industry leaders, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Twitter’s Elon Musk, find themselves walking a tightrope. While they believe that a superintelligent computer can greatly broaden the scope of human knowledge and contribute to solving society’s most complex problems, they also warn about the marginal risk of AI destroying human life altogether. So, what is the worst-case scenario? Some experts worry that unregulated and uncontrolled AI could ultimately pose an existential threat to humanity. One possible doomsday scenario involves the rapid advancement of an artificial general intelligence that can self-teach and eventually outperform human intelligence, leading to the redundancy or even extinction of the human race. This “Terminator” scenario, often depicted in science fiction, is now considered a realistic concern by AI developers. In May, the Centre for AI Safety published a note stating that mitigating the risks of AI extinction should be a global priority, alongside other global-scale risks like pandemics and nuclear war. Among the signatories were industry pioneers, including Sam Altman, Google and Microsoft executives, other AI startup leaders, and Geoffrey Hinton, a renowned figure in AI research. Notably absent from the list was Elon Musk, who has separately called for a six-month pause on developing AI models more advanced than OpenAI’s GPT4. Despite co-founding OpenAI, Musk left the company in 2018 and launched his own competitor, xAI, in July. Musk emphasized the potential dominance of digital superintelligence over nation-state battles. Apart from these worst-case concerns, AI also poses immediate risks. These include job displacement, the dissemination of convincing misinformation, copyright violations, and manipulation of individuals through malicious chatbots. Mustafa Suleyman, the founder of chatbot maker Inflection, has cautioned that AI would create numerous losers as intelligent robots replace white-collar employees. Jobs in fields like law, copywriting, and coding are particularly vulnerable to disruption or replacement by chatbots that can analyze vast amounts of data and produce reasoned arguments. Even creative roles, like those in Hollywood, fear the mimicry of their work by AI. Is the AI industry capable of mitigating these risks? OpenAI and other companies are heavily investing in aligning their AI models with specific goals to ensure they do not cause harm, spread hate, or disseminate misinformation. However, there is still the possibility of bad actors exploiting the immense power of AI for malicious purposes, even manipulating the principles used to align the models and using them against their intended purpose. The competition between the US and China in AI development and defense spending has further escalated concerns. As both nations vie for technological dominance and bolster national security, AI is poised to revolutionize modern warfare by expanding the capabilities of autonomous machines to locate and eliminate human targets. Ultimately, politicians and policymakers are facing a complex dilemma as they weigh the risks and benefits of AI technology.
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