Max Tegmark Is One of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in AI

Max Tegmark, a professor at MIT and the founder of the Future of Life Institute, remains concerned about the potential dangers posed by increasingly powerful AI models. In 2023, the FLI released an open letter urging AI companies to temporarily halt the development of systems more advanced than OpenAI’s GPT-4, and received support from numerous high-profile signatories. The FLI also issued a letter last October calling for the prohibition of superintelligent AI development.

Tegmark believes that the lack of regulation in the AI industry has created a "race to the bottom," where companies prioritize speed over safety. However, there has been a significant shift in public sentiment towards AI in recent years, with people becoming more concerned about job security, data center construction, and AI use by minors. This change in perspective may make AI safety a hot-button issue in the upcoming midterms, leading to lawmakers taking action.

To encourage the relatively unregulated AI industry to establish safety measures, the FLI grades the world's biggest AI companies on safety and security. So far, Anthropic has earned a C+ on the nonprofit's AI Safety Index. Tegmark, who has met with lawmakers and advisers from both sides of the political spectrum, acknowledges the broad support for AI that helps cure cancer and provides useful tools under human control, but also points out the significant opposition to building AI that is uncontrollable, romanticizes children, and teaches terrorists to create bioweapons.