Elon Musk

Rishi Sunak

Kamala Harris

Bill Gates

Andrew Ng

Yoshua Bengio

Fei-Fei Li

Demis Hassabis

Melanie Mitchell

Sam Altman

Dario Amodei

Geoffrey Hinton

Yann LeCun

Gary Marcus

Max Tegmark

Connor Leahy

Eliezer Yudkowsky

Jaan Tallinn

Marc Andreessen

Eric Schmidt

Norbert Wiener

Arthur Clarke

Irving John Good

Claude Shannon

Hans Moravec

John Smart

There's a "wall of fear-mongering and doomerism" in the AI world right now.

"Worrying about AI today is like worrying about overpopulation on Mars."

Concerns that AI could pose a threat to humanity is "preposterously ridiculous."

Claiming AI poses an existential threat is "such an extreme" and risks "wip[ing] out some of its potential benefits."

"I'm more concerned about... the risks that are here and now [than the existential threat of AI]."

Current AI is "not anywhere close" to posing an existential threat but it could in the future.

AI is the "biggest existential threat" to humanity.

AGI's worst-case scenario would be "lights-out for all of us."

Powerful AI systems "taking control" pose an "existential threat."

AI has a "10 to 25 per cent" chance of destroying humanity.

"The most likely result of building a superhumanly smart AI... is that literally everyone on Earth will die."

Does AI Pose an Existential Threat to Humanity?

Time

Last month, the IMD Business School launched its AI Safety Clock with the goal of "mak[ing] clear that the dangers of uncontrolled AGI [artificial general intelligence] are real and present," according to its creator, IMD professor Michael Wade.

Perplexity

Goodmenproject

The clock, which currently sits at 29 minutes to midnight, claims to monitor three key factors — AI sophistication, autonomy, and physical integration. These are monitored via information from over 1K websites and nearly 3.5K news feeds.

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

IMD launches AI Safety Clock

IMD said the clock is "inspired" by the "Doomsday Clock," which was first established by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists  in 1947 to "convey threats to humanity and the planet." As of January 2024, the Doomsday Clock is set to 90 seconds to midnight.

Wade claims that while AI is currently "largely under human control," it is also "already making gains," including in autonomous military drones and social media bots. He's calling for a "global approach to AI regulation."

Verity

Earlier this year, the US, UK, and EU, among others, signed the first-ever legally binding international AI treaty. This followed other AI commitments since 2023, including the EU AI Act, the Bletchley Declaration, and a Group of Seven (G7) AI agreement.

Time #6408

The clock, which currently sits at 29 minutes to midnight, claims to monitor three key factors — AI sophistication, autonomy, and physical integration. They will be monitored via information from over 1K websites and nearly 3.5K news feeds.

The AI Safety Clock is a symbolic attempt to highlight the urgent need for domestic and international actors alike to wake up and finally acknowledge the real risks that new technology poses to the world. While there's still time to avoid disaster, it's imperative that humanity acts now before we have passed the point of no return.

Medium

29 Minutes to Midnight

A Saudi-backed business school's newly-released AI Safety Clock is yet another example of sensationalist AI doomerism. Ironically, the very same month that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists debunked claims of AI hyperbole, IMD recreated its Doomsday Clock without any scientific justification for its existence.

Gizmodo

For the Love of God, Stop Making Inscrutable Doomsday Clocks

There is a 41% chance that a US President's State of the Union address will mention the issue of AI existential risk before 2030, according to the Metaculus prediction community.

Metaculus

Metaculus #

Will a U.S. President’s State of the Union address mention the issue of AI existential risk before the listed year?

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Stefano Guidi/Contributor/Getty Images News via Getty Images

'AI Safety Clock' Launches

Artificial Intelligence

World

Headlines

The AI Safety Clock is a symbolic attempt to highlight the urgent need for domestic and international actors alike to wake up and acknowledge the real risks the new technology poses to the world. Nations must act now to ensure AI is aligned with our goals so that we can reap the multitude of benefits and avoid disaster.

This initiative is yet another example of sensationalist AI doomerism. Unlike the Doomsday Clock, IMD's AI Safety Clock has little scientific merit. Such fearmongering over a hypothetical future AI catastrophe only serves to distract from real, current AI challenges like resource consumption, labor exploitation, and algorithmic bias.

Tim Boyle/Getty Images News via Getty Images

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