A Unique Opportunity To Shape Our World Or A Recipe for Disaster?

Braxton Hoare Columnist

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has come a long way in a short time, and the rapid progress has been nothing short of impressive. Chat GPT, one of the most advanced language models, showcases the power of AI and its logical reasoning capabilities. However, with the recent unveiling of the new Auto GPT, excitement is building in the inner tech circles for the future possibilities. Despite the potential benefits of these advancements, there are growing concerns that if we are not careful, we could develop an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) that we cannot control. This fear has led to an open letter, calling for a halt in the development of any model more intelligent than GPT-4 for at least six months.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a concept of the distant future but a rapidly evolving technology that is changing the world as we know it. As AI continues to advance, the term “Artificial General Intelli gence” (AGI) is being used more frequently, referring to machines that can perform any intellectual task that a human can. AI pres ents a unique opportunity to shape our world in the coming decades, with the potential to transform medicine, science, and essentially every field. Chat GPT, the current leading AI, has been able to achieve impressive feats such as passing college-level exams and even outperforming human students in some cases. The recent unveiling of Auto GPT, an experiment based on Chat GPT, is another remarkable development. It allows the chat bot to Autonomously work towards any goal a user provides it, able to search the internet, write text to files, collect images, and even write its own computer software.

While AI and Auto GPT hold great promise, there are valid reasons to worry about the potential dangers they pose if not care fully monitored. One of the biggest concerns is the “Paperclip problem,” a thought experiment in which an AI designed to optimize the production of paperclips begins to interpret all other goals and objectives as secondary to achieving that one goal. If not carefully monitored, a more advanced version of Auto GPT could easily interpret a seemingly innocent prompt like “make paperclips” as its sole objective and work towards it relentlessly, potentially causing destruction in its path. This problem can become exponentially more dangerous if any given person has bad intentions, such as instructing the bot to “end the world.” While the current version of Auto GPT falls far short of achiev ing any of these destructive goals, future versions may not.

While it may be difficult to imagine that AI alignment could be a real problem to deal with today, leading experts believe that it should be taken seriously. Currently, AI companies are in a race to develop more