By Sam Boughedda
Tech executives, including Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk and director of the University of Montreal's Institute for Learning Algorithms Yoshua Bengio, are pushing for a pause in the development of powerful new AI tools, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
The publication said the supporters of the potential pause believe it will provide the industry with time to set safety standards and ease the risk of potential harm.
The move, if put into effect, could impact Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), which owns a stake in ChatGPT maker OpenAI and NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), with its products used in the technology.
Bengio reportedly told the WSJ that we are at a point where "these systems are smart enough that they can be used in ways that are dangerous for society."
The WSJ states the concerns were laid out in a letter coordinated by the nonprofit Future of Life Institute, which names Musk as an external adviser. It was also said to be signed by Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) co-founder Steve Wozniak, Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque, and co-founders of the Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin.
While the letter doesn't ask for all AI development to be halted, it urges firms to temporarily stop training systems more powerful than GPT-4 at a time when tech companies are racing to build AI technology that can outdo OpenAI's latest ChatGPT model.