An open letter with signatures from hundreds of the biggest names in tech, including Elon Musk, has urged the world's leading artificial intelligence labs to pause the training of new super-powerful systems for six months, saying that recent advances in AI present "profound risks to society and humanity." The letter comes just two weeks after the public release of OpenAI's GPT-4, the most powerful AI system ever released, which has led researchers to slash their expectations for when AGI--or artificial general intelligence that surpasses human cognitive ability--will arrive. Many experts fear that, as an AI arms race heats up, humanity is sleepwalking into catastrophe. "Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources," the letter says. "Unfortunately, this level of planning and management is not happening, even though recent months have seen AI labs locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control."