Humanity at risk of extinction due to AI. Yet another new (yet another) alarm

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A new alarm, the third in a few months, certainly the most catastrophic. After the letter from the founder of Tesla, Elon Musk, who asked the artificial intelligence industry to stop and reflect and the warning from Sam Atlman, the father of ChatGpt to leave Europe – a warning he immediately returned the next day – comes the alarm raised by some industry leaders.

Specifically, 350 managers signed a letter from the nonprofit Center for AI Safety telling us that AI poses an existential threat to humanity and should be considered a social risk like pandemics and nuclear wars. Let’s read better: “Mitigating the risk of extinction” posed by artificial intelligence “should be a priority together with other social risks such as pandemics and nuclear wars”.

Sam Altman’s Twists

Among the signatories of the letter, reports the New York Times, are the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, the number one of Google DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, and the leader of Anthropic, Dario Amodei. And also Geoffrey Hinton, one of the godfathers of AI who had “resigned” from Google to have freer hands to warn the world of the risks of AI.
And perhaps it would be necessary to start from the signatories to contextualize these alarms. Of all Sam Altman, the father of ChatGpt, lately is the most alarmed.

On March 29, commenting on the letter signed by Elon Musk asking for a halt to the development of chatbots, the CEO of OpenAi agreed but only with some parts. “The technical nuances are missing.” And then, he added, “it wasn’t the right way to call for better safety guidelines.” Last week before the US Senate he returned to the subject by comparing AI to energy and asking for an IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to regulate the sector. During a tour in Europe, he later stated that OpenAi was ready to leave the European market if it does not find a “square” with EU regulations.

The knot of the big names and the monetization of AI

We recall, again to provide some background information, that in April the Italian Privacy Guarantor had blocked access to ChatGpt for two weeks asking him to respect the European law on privacy and data management. And that the Ai Act, the European directive that will govern all forms of Ai for all the states of the old continent, should be implemented shortly, in June.