AI poses 'extinction-level' threat and US government must be given new 'emergency powers' to control technology, warns State Department report

A new US State Department-funded study calls for a temporary ban on the creation of advanced AI passed a certain threshold of computational power. The tech, its authors claim, poses an'extinction-level threat to the human species.' The study, commissioned as part of a 250,000 federal contract, also calls for'defining emergency powers' for the American government's executive branch'to respond to dangerous and fast-moving AI-related incidents' -- like'swarm robotics.' Treating high-end computer chips as international contraband, and even monitoring how hardware is used, are just some of the drastic measures the new study calls for. The report joins of a chorus of industry, governmental and academic voices calling for aggressive regulatory attention on the hotly pursued and game-changing, but socially disruptive, potential of artificial intelligence.