The 20’s are all about disruption and rapid change. With awareness of AI at an all-time high, industry leaders have called for a pause along with an independent review of the powerful AI systems that are growing more powerful with each release.
The appeal cites the maker of ChatGPT, OpenAI’s own call for independent review and risk analysis. Attempting to raise awareness of the risks in AI technology, FutureLive.org published an Open Letter requesting a ‘six-month pause’ in AI development. The plan has gained steam, and is now backed by tech leaders including Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak.
The adoption of ChatGPT since its public debut in December is staggering, with a reported 57 million monthly active users in its first month of availability. As a comparison, it took “TikTok roughly nine months after its launch to build the same user base, and roughly two and a half years for Instagram to acquire 100 million monthly active users.”
According to Statista, the growing demand for information on ChatGPT made the keyword hit a peak of 100 index points during the week ending on Feb. 12, 2023. Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (aka ChatGPT) is a chatbot and AI-powered auto-generative text system that gives human-sounding replies and reproduces human-like interactions when prompted.
Image depicting AI’s neural network pathways
(image source: FutureOfLife.org)
“Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter,” published by the non-profit Future of Life Institute, accused AI labs of being “locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy” powerful tech.
The Future of Life Institute was founded in 2014 with the purpose of reducing the existential risk to humanity, particularly from advanced artificial intelligence.
