A Letter Prompted Talk of AI Doomsday. Many Who Signed Weren't Actually AI Doomers

This March, nearly 35,000 AI researchers, technologists, entrepreneurs, and concerned citizens signed an open letter from the nonprofit Future of Life Institute that called for a "pause" on AI development, due to the risks to humanity revealed in the capabilities of programs such as ChatGPT. "Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitive at general tasks, and we must ask ourselves ... Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us?" I could still be proven wrong, but almost six months later and with AI development faster than ever, civilization hasn't crumbled. Heck, Bing Chat, Microsoft's "revolutionary," ChatGPT-infused search oracle, hasn't even displaced Google as the leader in search. So what should we make of the letter and similar sci-fi warnings backed by worthy names about the risks posed by AI? Two enterprising students at MIT, Isabella Struckman and Sofie Kupiec, reached out to the first hundred signatories of the letter calling for a pause on AI development to learn more about their motivations and concerns.