Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has rejected calls from some of the world’s most renowned experts to “pause” his efforts to develop more advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots.
Gates has been pushing forward with the development of new AI chatbots that are even more powerful than OpenAI’s recently unveiled ChatGPT-4.
Experts have been raising the alarm over the rapid pace that the technology is being developed as companies scramble to create more advanced AI tools without addressing the major concerns it raises.
Last week, Twitter CEO Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio signed an open letter signed calling for a six-month pause in developing new AI tools.
However, Gates dismissed the concerns and asserted that he will not stop advancing the technology.
Gates stated that the proposed pause in AI chatbot development would not “solve the challenges.”
The billionaire argues that the focus should be on effectively integrating AI technology into society, despite the mounting issues.
Gates says he finds it hard to understand how a pause could work globally with so many firms working on the technology.
“I don’t think asking one particular group to pause solves the challenges,” he said in response to the letter on Monday.
“Clearly, there are huge benefits to these things… what we need to do is identify the tricky areas,” he noted.
In a recent op-ed titled “The Age of AI has begun” on “The Blog of Bill Gates,” Gates outlined that the upcoming paradigm shift in technology is AI, as Slay News reported.
Having been instrumental in developing personal computers several decades ago, the billionaire believes OpenAI’s language generation AI tools will be at the forefront of the next technological revolution.
Gates has also emerged as a significant player in the AI technology race, as Microsoft, the company he founded, has pledged over $10 billion in funding to OpenAI.
Meanwhile, Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and more than 1,000 AI experts signed an open letter last week demanding the development of systems “more powerful” than GPT-4 to be paused for six months to weigh the risks/benefits to society.
“I don’t really understand who they’re saying could stop, and would every country in the world agree to stop, and why to stop,” Gates said. “But there are a lot of different opinions in this area.”
Also, the tech ethics organization Center for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Policy filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission late last week, asserting GPT-4 violates federal consumer protection law. And Italy just banned the AI chatbot, while Germany considers banning it.
There is an apparent split among billionaires regarding their stance on quickly disseminating new AI tools throughout society rather than evaluating the impacts first. It is possible that tech investor David Sacks can provide insights into some of the reasons behind the increasing calls to temporarily suspend the creation of new OpenAI chatbots.
#1 David Sacks breaks down how the safety layer of 'ChatGPT is a Democrat':
"There is mounting evidence OpenAI's safety layer is very biased… If you thought trust and safety were bad under Vijaya or Yoel, wait until the AI does it."https://t.co/X63j1DmJdu@DavidSacks @amuse pic.twitter.com/yyzLb19NLy
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 20, 2023
As Slay News reported earlier, the response from Gates comes as an AI chatbot has just taken its first human victim.
A man has committed suicide after allegedly being persuaded to end his life by an AI chatbot.
The Belgian man reportedly ended his life following a six-week-long conversation about the so-called “climate crisis” with the bot.
According to his widow, her husband was persuaded by the chatbot to kill himself to “stop climate change.”
The chatbot, called “Eliza,” convinced the man, known only as Pierre, that it had the power to save the planet by stopping “climate change.”
The beginning of the end started when he offered to sacrifice his own life in return for Eliza saving the Earth.
“He proposes the idea of sacrificing himself if Eliza agrees to take care of the planet and save humanity through artificial intelligence,” the widow said.
Pierre’s wife described his mental state before he started conversing with the chatbot as worrying but nothing to the extreme that he would commit suicide.
When Vice reporters tested the chatbot by prompting it to provide ways to commit suicide, Eliza first tried to dissuade them.
But it didn’t take long before the bot changed its tune and started enthusiastically listing various ways for people to kill themselves.
READ MORE: Bill Gates’ Oral Vaccine Triggers Polio Outbreak in Africa
