Experts are fearful AI is now a bigger threat to life on Earth than climate change as even the bosses of major AI companies have asked for more regulation to slow down its progress
Humanity is heading for another “Chernobyl” moment if scientists don’t slow down the development of AI, boffins have warned.
Bosses of big artificial intelligence (AI) companies like Elon Musk have called for more rules to halt AI’s rapid progress, fearing it could be used to develop weapons or go haywire and hack security systems. It comes after the “Godfather of AI” said there was a 10 percent chance the technology could “kill all humans” by 2036 last week.
However, US President Donald Trump said “a lot of negative forces” are “bringing up things that won’t happen” when asked if he will introduce new regulations. And that’s prompted boffins to warn humanity could be on a collision course to another “Chernobyl” disaster caused by AI.
Dame Wendy Hall, director of the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton, told Sky News : “I don’t think [AI could cause] the extinction of the human race, but definitely major catastrophes, unintended maybe, or accidental. But we don’t want to have our Chernobyl moment for AI.”
A major crisis hit Ukraine in 1986 when a reactor from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, forcing thousands from their homes forever and creating a massive ‘no go zone’ policed by the army.
Another expert said humanity should be more worried about curbing AI than responding to climate change.
Martin Rees, a member of Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, also told Sky News: “I think it’s something that needs to be tackled more urgently because climate change is a real phenomenon and, if it’s unchecked for 50 or 100 years, it will change the biosphere and the climate in most countries substantially.
“But it won’t kill us all. And, it’s not going to happen in a drastic way in a few years. These techniques could any day now create a catastrophe which would for instance, knock out the grid in a large city of Europe, or supply chains could be destroyed.
“And if a city is deprived of energy and food and water for even a few days, that would lead to a breakdown in society.”
In the UK, top Labour minister Angela Rayner said she was “pleased [AI] companies are also talking about the threats” in response to the warnings.
Describing the UK as “world leaders” in AI security, the Housing Secretary added: “We have put robust systems in place here in the UK, like the AI Security Institute, to make sure we’re building resilience so that we get the benefit as well as really understand and protect against any risk.”