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by Ray Kurzweil
April 2023

Regarding the Open Letter to “pause” research on AI “more powerful than GPT-4,” this criterion is too vague to be practical. And the proposal faces a serious coordination problem: those that agree to a pause may fall far behind corporations or nations that disagree. There are tremendous benefits to advancing AI in critical fields such as medicine and health, education, pursuit of renewable energy sources to replace fossil fuels, and scores of other fields. I didn’t sign, because I believe we can address the signers’ safety concerns in a more tailored way that doesn’t compromise these vital lines of research.

I participated in the Asilomar AI Principles Conference in 2017 and was actively involved in the creation of guidelines to create Artificial Intelligence in an ethical manner. So I know that safety is a critical issue. But more nuance is needed if we wish to unlock AI’s profound advantages to health and productivity while avoiding the real perils.

— Ray Kurzweil
Inventor, best-selling author, and futurist.

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reference

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the Future of Life Institute | home ~ channel

open letter: Pause Giant AI Experiments. | view
date: March 2023

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This letter’s signatories call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of artificial intelligence systems more powerful than GPT-4.