Doomsday to Utopia: Meet AI’s Rival Factions

April 11, 2023

(Washington Post) – Inside Silicon Valley’s AI sector, fierce divisions are growing over the impact of a new wave of artificial intelligence: While some argue it’s imperative to race ahead, others say the technology presents an existential risk. Those tensions took center stage late last month, when Elon Musk, along with other tech executives and academics, signed an open letter calling for a six-month pause on developing “human-competitive” AI, citing “profound risks to society and humanity.” Self-described decision theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky, co-founder of the nonprofit Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), went further: AI development needs to be shut down worldwide, he wrote in a Time magazine op-ed, calling for American airstrikes on foreign data centers if necessary. (Read More)