March 30, 2023: Elon Musk and dozens of different technology leaders have called on A.I. labs to pause the growth of systems that can compete with human-level intelligence.

In a letter from the Future of Life Institute, by Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang, AI labs have pressurized to cease training models more potent than GPT-4, the latest version of the powerful language model software growing by U.S. startup OpenAI.

“Contemporary A.I. systems are becoming human-competitive at general tasks, and we must ask ourselves. Should we allow machines to flood our channels with propaganda and untruth?” the letter read.

“Should we automate all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we grow nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk the loss of control of our civilization?”

The letter added, “Such ideas must not be delegated to unelected technology leaders.”

The upcoming Life Institute is a nonprofit crew based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that campaigns for artificial intelligence’s responsible and ethical development. Its founders, such as MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark and Skype co-owner Jaan Tallinn.

The organization has gotten the likes of Musk, and Google owns A.I. lab DeepMind to promise never to grow lethal autonomous weapons systems.

The institute called on all A.I. labs to “immediately pause for at least six months the training of A.I. systems more powerful than GPT-4.”

GPT-4, released earlier this month, is considered far more advanced than its predecessor GPT-3.

“If such a stop cannot be enacted quickly, the administration should step in and institute a moratorium,” it added.

ChatGPT, the viral A.I. chatbot, has stunned researchers with its ability to produce humanlike answers to user prompts. By January, ChatGPT had amassed 100 million active users only dual months into its launch, making it an increase-growing consumer application.

The technology training on vast amounts of data from the internet. It has been used to create everything from poetry in the style of William Shakespeare drafting legal opinions on court cases.

But A.I. ethicists have also raised concerns about potential abuses of the technology, like plagiarism and misinformation.

In the coming days of Life Institute letter, technology owners and academics said A.I. systems with human-competitive intelligence poses “profound risks to society and humanity.”

“A.I. research and growth should be refocused on making today’s powerful, state-of-the-art systems accurate, safe, interpretable, transparent, robust, trustworthy, and loyal,” they said.