“Powerful AI systems should only be developed once we are confident that their impact will be positive and their risks manageable,” it said.
Musk was an early investor in OpenAI, spending years on its board, and his car firm Tesla develops AI systems to help power its self-driving technology, among other applications.
The letter, hosted by the Musk-funded Future of Life Institute, was signed by prominent critics as well as OpenAI’s competitors such as sustainability AI chief Emad Mostak.
Canadian AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio, who is also a signatory, warned at a virtual press conference in Montreal that “society is not ready” for this powerful tool and its potential misuse.
“Let’s slow down. Let’s make sure we develop better guardrails,” he said, calling for a deeper international discussion about AI and its implications, “like we’ve done for nuclear power and nuclear weapons.”
