The Tech Community Is Divided Over Elon Musk's Petition To Halt AI Research

More than 2,600 tech industry leaders and researchers signed an open statement, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

The open petition demanded that all future research and development into artificial intelligence (AI) be temporarily stopped.

The petition expressed worries that society and humanity could face significant risks from AI with human-competitive intelligence. It demanded that for at least six months, all AI companies “immediately cease” from creating AI systems that are more powerful than the Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4 (GPT-4). The fourth in the GPT series, GPT-4 is a multimodal big language model developed by OpenAI.

Even though the petition has a lot of supporters, the broader tech community disagrees with the development halt. Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, was one of many well-known figures who opposed the initiative.

Committees and bureaucracy, according to Armstrong, “won’t solve anything.” He continued by saying that no “experts” have been chosen to rule on this matter and that not everyone in the tech sector supports the motion.

Armstrong emphasized that while there are risks associated with any new technology, the ultimate objective should be to advance. He continued by saying that decision-making should not be centralized.

Never let fear stand in the way of advancement, and watch out for anyone attempting to seize power through a centralized authority. Armstrong used Twitter.
The campaign started by Musk has been referred to as a “apocalyptic AI hype carnival” by LA Times columnist Brian Merchant. He continued by saying that many of the expressed worries are “robot jobs apocalypse”-related.

The petition has been compared to a “non-proliferation treaty but for AI” by Satvik Sethi, a former Web3 official at Mastercard. Many of the well-known signers on the list, he continued, have a strong personal stake in the AI industry and are probably just “trying to slow down their counterparts so they can get ahead.”

The Tech Community Is Divided Over Elon Musk’s Petition To Halt AI Research

More than 2,600 tech industry leaders and researchers signed an open statement, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

Download The Radiant App To Start Watching!