Anthropic is proposing that the world’s top come up with a coordinated way to pause development of advanced AI systems, warning the technology is improving so quickly there’s a risk humans would .
The company behind the Claude chatbot said in a blog post Thursday that as cutting-edge AI gets increasingly faster at carrying out tasks, 鈥渋t would be good for the world to have the option to slow or temporarily pause鈥� its development.
said its internal research institute plans to explore the issue in collaboration with others and 鈥渢ake actions” to help build the systems for a credible slowdown or pause, without being more specific.
Anthropic rival OpenAI argued for a different approach in a report published Wednesday, saying that 鈥渄emocratic governments 鈥� not private companies acting alone 鈥� must ultimately determine the rules, safeguards, and accountability mechanisms.鈥�
鈥淥ur view is that decisions about the pace of AI innovation should not be left to any one lab, company, or special interest group,鈥� it said.
AI models are getting faster, with rapid increases in how quickly they can carry out software tasks like coding on their own, Anthropic said in its post. Based on current trends and given enough computing power, an AI system could be able to design and develop its own successor, in what is known as 鈥渞ecursive self-improvement.鈥�
Self-building AI would be a major technological milestone that would bring benefits in science, healthcare and other areas, Anthropic said, but it 鈥渁lso might increase the risks of humans losing control over AI systems.鈥�
Some tech industry figures have long warned of such a scenario.
Anthropic鈥檚 post comes after a different warning this week from a team of researchers at the University of Toronto who showed how AI tools could be used to create a new kind of AI 鈥渨orm鈥� that adapts its hacking strategy as it spreads from device to device and takes over a vast computing network.
鈥淚 think it鈥檚 really important that people understand that it鈥檚 not just the biggest, most powerful language models that pose the security concerns,鈥� lead researcher Nicolas Papernot said in an interview.
The authors of , company co-founder Jack Clark and Marina Favaro, head of its research institute, said the pause would be used to enable 鈥渟ocietal structures and alignment research” to keep up with AI advances. Alignment is industry shorthand for making sure the technology matches human values and intentions.
The proposed coordination would let advanced AI labs verify that global rivals have actually stopped or slowed their work, 鈥渁nd that a bad actor could not use the auspices of a coordinated slowdown to jump ahead in secret.鈥�
The company said a coordinated global mechanism is needed because without it a slowdown in AI development could let the 鈥渓east cautious鈥� players catch up and add to pressure on companies and governments as they make tough choices about AI safety.
Anthropic’s post comes as the company and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI race to sell shares on the stock market, in an IPO that could value Anthropic at nearly a trillion dollars.
Papernot notified Canadian cybersecurity authorities prior to releasing his report, which shows how researchers developed the worm in a laboratory by using an 鈥渙pen-source鈥� AI tool that is easy for software developers to cheaply access and modify.
鈥淚n the past, cyber attackers would focus on targets that are very high value,鈥� he said. 鈥淏anking systems, hospitals, electricity grids, water treatment systems, schools.鈥�
Papernot agreed that there should be more collaboration between companies, government agencies and academic researchers to develop countermeasures as AI-powered hacking tools supercharge the search for computer vulnerabilities.
鈥淭hat old laptop you have in your basement that you don鈥檛 check on regularly doesn鈥檛 seem like a very high-value target, but It can be used as a launch pad to attack these higher-value targets,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nything connected to the internet is now at risk because of how low the cost has become to mount these cyberattacks.鈥�
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