Tipping Point Quick Hits (06.01.23)

AI extinction risk, unbelieving Jews, and a red heifer update

AI Execs: We Face “Risk of Extinction”

I know I’ve written and spoken a lot about artificial intelligence lately, but the developments within this sector have been arriving at an unprecedented pace. The speed at which AI is developing doesn’t just worry outsiders like me, but executives inside the industry.

That’s the message of a new open letter released on Tuesday of this week. The Center for AI Safety (CAIS), a nonprofit based in San Francisco, released a statement made up only of a single sentence. That sentence definitely caught my attention:

Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.

The statement was signed by a number of notable scientists and technologists, including executives from labs like OpenAI (creator of Chat GPT) and DeepMind, along with prominent AI textbook authors and other award-winning researchers. All of them were essentially warning that their life’s work could extinguish human life as we know it.