Artificial intelligence pioneer Andrew Ng said warnings about existential AI risks from researchers at top model makers are “science fiction” that may be detrimental to ensuring the technology’s maximum benefits to society.
Andrew Ng, who helped start Google Brain and Coursera Inc., said the tech industry previously stoked fears about the potential catastrophic harms of artificial intelligence earlier in the AI boom
The high-profile resignation this month of former Anthropic and OpenAI researcher Jacob Coxon helped bring a long-simmering discussion about AI safety into the mainstream. Against that backdrop, AI leaders including Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman are calling for the industry to pace development of cutting-edge models and take additional steps to safeguard future development.
Ng, who helped start Google Brain and Coursera Inc., said the tech industry previously stoked fears about the potential catastrophic harms of artificial intelligence earlier in the AI boom in an apparent bid to bolster publicity and shape regulation. Coxon accused both his former employers of “gambling with our lives” by “racing toward super-intelligent AI,” and said the people building AI believe it could “kill us all by the end of the decade.
Earlier this week, an AI researcher who recently resigned from Google DeepMind also warned humanity is running out of time to prevent artificial intelligence from causing widespread harm.
