Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Jeff J. Mitchell – Poole/Getty Images
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has said he “fears” artificial intelligence falling into the wrong hands, but some experts have called for a pause in advanced AI development. claims that the technology may already be running out of control.
Gates said in an interview that the latest advances in AI are revolutionary. ABC Although it went public on Monday, the technology is fraught with many uncertainties. U.S. regulators are lagging behind, and research into human-level artificial intelligence is advancing so rapidly that more than 1,000 technologists and computer scientists, including Twitter and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, , he said, signed an open letter in March asking for a six-month grace period. Pause advanced AI development until a “robust AI governance system” is in place.
But for Gates, AI is much more than a pause-button technology.
“If you only suspend the good people and not the others, you’re probably hurting yourself,” he said. ABCadds that developing more powerful AI systems is important for the “good guys.”
Defining who is the good guy is subjective, but the race for dominant AI is magnifying existing rivalries on a corporate and geopolitical scale. OpenAI’s successful launch of ChatGPT late last year sparked an arms race between Microsoft and Google to dominate the generative AI market, while the US and Chinese governments are battling for AI supremacy. As a result, the conflict has spread internationally.
For example, ChatGPT is blocked in China. Meanwhile, Baidu, China’s most popular search engine, has developed its own generative AI application, but failed to impress investors when it launched in March. China is already ahead of the US in creating AI regulations, opening the door to even more innovation in the future. But some Chinese companies developing AI, such as tech giant Alibaba, are hampered by censorship laws that create a more limited pool of data that can be used to train the system.
The international AI race is not limited to gaining business advantage. The technology also promises to enhance military capabilities and war strategy.
China invests at least $1.6 billion annually in AI-related military systems, according to a 2021 report from Georgetown University. Russia, on the other hand, has been head-on in the AI race, at least since 2017, when President Vladimir Putin declared this technology to be “the future not only of Russia, but of all mankind.” Digital hacker attacks have been a hallmark of Russia’s military strategy in Ukraine, an intrusion that could be bolstered by more powerful AI, and Ukrainian cities have been using semi-autonomous kamikazes since the invasion began last year. We are being terrorized by drones.
In March’s 2024 budget proposal, the U.S. Department of Defense asked lawmakers to approve $1.8 billion in new AI investments.
“We are all afraid that the bad guys will grab it. If the bad guys get ahead of the good guys, things like cyberattacks could be triggered by AI,” Gates said. increase.
He argued that the competitive nature of AI development means that a moratorium on new research is unlikely to succeed.
“You definitely want good people to have powerful AI,” he continued. When asked if he could guarantee that the “good guys” would develop a more powerful form of his AI, Gates replied:
Other experts have made a similar argument that AI is unlikely to be curbed due to the large number of stakeholders. Hinton compared the need for global rules governing AI to international treaties that have curbed the proliferation of nuclear weapons for decades. new york timesBut the main difference with AI is that it is much easier for rivals to develop behind closed doors than weapons of mass destruction.
and CNN In an interview last week, Hinton added that he does not support a moratorium on AI research. Because it is difficult to impose internationally, it allows rivals to stay ahead.
“I don’t think we should stop progress. It’s very difficult to see if they’re doing it,” he said.
