• AI The official ChatGPT app is now available in Spain
  • OpenAI ChatGPT could leave the European Union if it cannot comply with EU rules on artificial intelligence

At the end of March, more than 1,000 experts signed a document calling for a six-month moratorium on the development of artificial intelligence. The danger of moving forward without clear regulation, they argued, was too great. Now, more than 350 executives, lawmakers and researchers have gone a step further and say the technology should be considered as risky to civilization as a nuclear war or pandemic.

"Mitigating the risk of extinction by AI should be a global priority along with other risks on a societal scale, such as pandemics and nuclear war," reads the brief statement released by the Center for the Safety of Artificial Intelligence, a non-profit organization that brings together the main technology companies and academic departments that study these disciplines.

The phrase is signed, among others, Sam Altman, the president of OpenAI (the company behind the popular tool ChatGPT), Lila Ibrahim, head of operations of Google DeepMind, or the winner of the Turing award, Geoffrey Hinton, who is considered one of the "fathers" of neural networks, a key piece of the infrastructure of current artificial intelligence systems.

And although the warning is not new, it is the first time that it is done so emphatically and seconded by so many voices. It follows the line drawn in recent weeks by the main leaders of the technology industry, including Sam Altman himself, who, before the US Senate, acknowledged that there should be a supranational body that supervises the different projects and the effects they could have on society.

The dangers are several and the truth is that not all experts are concerned about the same things. That is why, in part, the statement is so brief. "We did not want a lengthy document that diluted the urgency," sources from the organization explained to the New York Times.

Some, for example, fear the impact artificial intelligence will have on the job market. According to investment bank Goldman Sachs, artificial intelligence tools threaten to eliminate more than 300 million jobs in a short period of time.

Others see the danger in the ease with which these tools can create or alter photos and videos or invent facts and studies in their responses. These problems could contribute to increasing the problem of disinformation and propaganda.

"The declaration aims to overcome these disagreements and open the debate and also highlight the growing number of experts and public figures who also take seriously some of the most serious risks of AI," they say from the organization, which leaves in the air the way in which the advance of artificial intelligences should be regulated or controlled.

  • ChatGPT
  • Artificial intelligence

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Learn more