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Title: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Calls For AI Slowdown

Link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/09/12/1738240/a...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The chief
executive of Anthropic called for a global slowdown of artificial
intelligence development in a 3,800-word essay on Saturday, just days after
one of the company's employees quit over concerns about the safety of the
technology. Dario Amodei, who co-founded Anthropic to focus on securely and
carefully building A.I., wrote that while he believed the technology could
bring many benefits, it was advancing at too quick a pace for researchers to
continue safely. "Over the last few months, I have become convinced that
fully addressing the risks requires even more prudence -- not just investing
in risk prevention, but pacing the rate of capabilities advancement so that
risk prevention has time to keep up," Mr. Amodei said. "We must slow the pace
at which we improve the capabilities of A.I. models. Progress will still seem
fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain." [...] "Left unchecked,
it could outrun our ability to understand and control these systems, and so
must be pursued very carefully, if at all," Mr. Amodei said. [...] In his
essay on Saturday, Mr. Amodei suggested actions that the industry might take
to slow down the pace of development. Mr. Amodei said all A.I. labs could
agree to third-party technology assessments from "embedded evaluators," or
outside specialists who can verify best safety practices across companies. He
also suggested that countries with democratic governance systems coordinate
to create safety standards, which could take the form of regulatory action.
He added that it would probably require a global effort working with other
nations, including authoritarian ones, to properly coordinate a slowdown. Mr.
Amodei stressed in his essay that he still finds A.I. capable of bringing
"incredible benefits" to humanity, including potentially curing diseases and
accelerating economic growth. But even so, Mr. Amodei said the risks of A.I.
were too great to not proceed with extreme caution. "The measures I propose
to advance the frontier at a safe pace will not be easy," Mr. Amodei wrote.
"But I believe we owe it to humanity to try." Amodei's essay comes just hours
after Bloomberg reported that Sam Altman told OpenAI employees the company is
open to slowing the pace of AI development amid similar concerns.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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