UN AI experts warn against 'apocalyptic' rhetoric on risks

Experts on a United Nations artificial intelligence committee have warned against using apocalyptic rhetoric when discussing AI risks. According to Yoshua Bengio, a co-chair of the panel and one of the fathers of AI, it is essential to distinguish between what scientists know about AI risks and what can only be plausibly extrapolated.

Joelle Barral, an executive at Google DeepMind and a member of the International Scientific Panel on AI, emphasized the importance of investing in science to understand AI risks, rather than investing in fear. Her comments were in response to recent public statements on AI's potential dangers, including those made by Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic employee who said AI developers believed the technology could kill people by the end of the decade.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa also spoke out, calling for a change in the way AI risk is discussed, as it is often portrayed as either an existential threat or something that does not matter. The experts made these comments at an event held in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Brief written by urgent.news from Economic Times Tech, Gulf News, Free Malaysia Today — 3 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.