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THOUSANDS of AI researchers have warned that artificial intelligence has the potential to cause human extinction.
Over 2,700 AI experts were surveyed as part of a new study looking into the risks of the technology.
According to the research, 48 percent of experts believe there is a 5 percent chance of AI causing human extinction.
The researchers wrote: “Most respondents expressed substantial uncertainty about the long-term value of AI progress:
“While 68.3% thought good outcomes from superhuman AI are more likely than bad, of these net optimists 48% gave at least a 5% chance of extremely bad outcomes such as human extinction, and 59% of net pessimists gave 5% or more to extremely good outcomes.
“Between 37.8% and 51.4% of respondents gave at least a 10% chance to advanced AI leading to outcomes as bad as human extinction.”
Katja Grace, an AI expert at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute in California, was one of the authors of the paper.
According to the New Scientist she explained: “It’s an important signal that most AI researchers don’t find it strongly implausible that advanced AI destroys humanity.
“I think this general belief in a non-minuscule risk is much more telling than the exact percentage risk.”
The research paper also highlighted other issues that AI could bring.
These include the spread of misinformation, population control, and increased inequality.
Deepfakes, the creation of weapons, and manipulation of public opinion were also listed as concerns.
The paper’s authors stressed there was a broad agreement that minimizing the risks of AI should be a priority.
There is no need to panic just yet though.
The researchers did highlight that predicting the future is difficult, even for experts.
They wrote: “Forecasting is difficult in general, and subject-matter experts have been observed to perform poorly.
“Our participants’ expertise is in AI, and they do not, to our knowledge, have any unusual skill at forecasting in general.”
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