Chatbot

Elon Musk and tech execs call for pause on AI development

The authors of the letter say that advanced artificial intelligence could cause a profound change in the history of life on Earth, for better or worse.

More than 2,600 tech leaders and researchers have signed an open letter urging a temporary pause on further artificial intelligence (AI) development, fearing “profound risks to society and humanity.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and a host of AI CEOs, CTOs and researchers were among the signatories of the letter, which was published by the United States think tank Future of Life Institute (FOLI) on March 22.

The institute called on all AI companies to “immediately pause” training AI systems that are more powerful than GPT-4 for at least six months, sharing concerns that “human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity,” among other things.

“Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources. Unfortunately, this level of planning and management is not happening,” the institute wrote.

GPT-4 is the latest iteration of OpenAI’s artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, which was released on March 14. To date, it has passed some of the most rigorous U.S. high school and law exams within the 90th percentile. It is understood to be 10 times more advanced than the original version of ChatGPT.

There is an “out-of-control race” between AI firms to develop more powerful AI, whi“no one — not even their creators — can understand, predict, or reliably control,” FOLI claimed.

Among the top concerns were whether machines could flood information channels, potentially with “propaganda and untruth” and whether machines will “automate away” all employment opportunities.

FOLI took these concerns one step further, suggesting that the entrepreneurial efforts of these AI companies may lead to an existential threat:

“Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?”

“Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders,” the letter added.

The institute also agreed with a recent statement from OpenAI founder Sam Altman that an independent review should be required before training future AI systems.

Altman in his Feb. 24 blog post highlighted the need to prepare for artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial superintelligence (ASI) robots.

Not all AI pundits have rushed to sign the petition, though. Ben Goertzel, the CEO of SingularityNET, explained in a March 29 Twitter response to Gary Marcus, the author of Rebooting.AI, that language learning models (LLMs) won’t become AGIs, which, to date, there have been few developments of.

Instead, he said research and development should be slowed down for things like bioweapons and nukes:

In addition to language learning models like ChatGPT, AI-powered deep fake technology has been used to create convincing images, audio and video hoaxes. The technology has also been used to create AI-generated artwork, with some concerns raised about whether it could violate copyright laws in certain cases.

Related: ChatGPT can now access the internet with new OpenAI plugins

Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz recently told investors he was shocked over the amount of regulatory attention that has been given to crypto, while little has been toward artificial intelligence.

“When I think about AI, it shocks me that we’re talking so much about crypto regulation and nothing about AI regulation. I mean, I think the government’s got it completely upside-down,” he opined during a shareholders call on March 28.

FOLI has argued that should AI development pause not be enacted quickly, governments should get involved with a moratorium.

“This pause should be public and verifiable, and include all key actors. If such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium,” it wrote.

Magazine: How to prevent AI from ‘annihilating humanity’ using blockchain

ChatGPT v4 aces the bar, SATs and can identify exploits in ETH contracts

GPT-4 completed many of the tests within the top 10% of the cohort, while the original version of ChatGPT often finished up in the bottom 10%.

GPT-4, the latest version of the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, can pass high school tests and law school exams with scores ranking in the 90th percentile and has new processing capabilities that were not possible with the prior version.

The figures from GPT-4’s test scores were shared on March 14 by creator OpenAI, revealing it can also convert image, audio and video inputs to text in addition to handling “much more nuanced instructions” more creatively and reliably. 

“It passes a simulated bar exam with a score around the top 10% of test takers,” OpenAI added. “In contrast, GPT-3.5’s score was around the bottom 10%.”

The figures show that GPT-4 achieved a score of 163 in the 88th percentile on the LSAT exam — the test college students need to pass in the United States to be admitted into law school.

Exam results of GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 on a range of recent U.S. exams. Source: OpenAI

GPT4’s score would put it in a good position to be admitted into a top 20 law school and is only a few marks short of the reported scores needed for acceptance to prestigious schools such as Harvard, Stanford, Princeton or Yale.

The prior version of ChatGPT only scored 149 on the LSAT, putting it in the bottom 40%.

GPT-4 also scored 298 out of 400 in the Uniform Bar Exam — a test undertaken by recently graduated law students permitting them to practice as a lawyer in any U.S. jurisdiction.

UBE scores needed to be admitted to practice law in each U.S. jurisdiction. Source: National Conference of Bar Examiners

The old version of ChatGPT struggled in this test, finishing in the bottom 10% with a score of 213 out of 400.

As for the SAT Evidence-Based Reading & Writing and SAT Math exams taken by U.S. high school students to measure their college readiness, GPT-4 scored in the 93rd and 89th percentile, respectively.

GPT-4 excelled in the “hard” sciences too, posting well above average percentile scores in AP Biology (85-100%), Chemistry (71-88%) and Physics 2 (66-84%).

Exam results of GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 on a range of recent U.S. exams. Source: OpenAI

However its AP Calculus score was fairly average, ranking in the 43rd to 59th percentile.

Another area where GPT-4 was lacking was in English literature exams, posting scores in the 8th to 44th percentile across two separate tests.

OpenAI said GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 took these tests from the 2022-2023 practice exams, and that “no specific training” was taken by the language processing tools:

“We did no specific training for these exams. A minority of the problems in the exams were seen by the model during training, but we believe the results to be representative.”

The results prompted fear in the Twitter community too.

Related: How will ChatGPT affect the Web3 space? Industry answers

Nick Almond, the founder of FactoryDAO, told his 14,300 Twitter followers on March 14 that GPT4 is going to “scare people” and it will “collapse” the global education system.

Former Coinbase director Conor Grogan said he inserted a live Ethereum smart contract into GPT-4, and the chatbot instantly pointed to several “security vulnerabilities” and outlined how the code mighbe exploited:

Earlier smart contract audits on ChatGPT found that its first version was also capable at spotting out code bugs to a reasonable degree as well.

Rowan Cheung, the founder of the AI newsletter The Rundown, shared a video of GPT transcribing a hand-drawn fake website on a piece of paper into code.