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Cause Area

Artificial Intelligence

From recommender algorithms to chatbots to self-driving cars, AI is changing our lives. As the impact of this technology grows, so will the risks.

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Artificial Intelligence is racing forward. Companies are increasingly creating general-purpose AI systems that can perform many different tasks. Large language models (LLMs) can compose poetry, create dinner recipes and write computer code. Some of these models already pose major risks, such as the erosion of democratic processes, rampant bias and misinformation, and an arms race in autonomous weapons. But there is worse to come.

AI systems will only get more capable. Corporations are actively pursuing ‘artificial general intelligence’ (AGI), which can perform as well as or better than humans at a wide range of tasks. These companies promise this will bring unprecedented benefits, from curing cancer to ending global poverty. On the flip side, more than half of AI experts believe there is a one in ten chance this technology will cause our extinction.

This belief has nothing to do with the evil robots or sentient machines seen in science fiction. In the short term, advanced AI can enable those seeking to do harm – bioterrorists, for instance – by easily executing complex processing tasks without conscience.

In the longer term, we should not fixate on one particular method of harm, because the risk comes from greater intelligence itself. Consider how humans overpower less intelligent animals without relying on a particular weapon, or an AI chess program defeats human players without relying on a specific move.

Militaries could lose control of a high-performing system designed to do harm, with devastating impact. An advanced AI system tasked with maximising company profits could employ drastic, unpredictable methods. Even an AI programmed to do something altruistic could pursue a destructive method to achieve that goal. We currently have no good way of knowing how AI systems will act, because no one, not even their creators, understands how they work.

AI safety has now become a mainstream concern. Experts and the wider public are united in their alarm at emerging risks and the pressing need to manage them. But concern alone will not be enough. We need policies to help ensure that AI development improves lives everywhere – rather than merely boosts corporate profits. And we need proper governance, including robust regulation and capable institutions that can steer this transformative technology away from extreme risks and towards the benefit of humanity.

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Our content

Recent content on Artificial Intelligence

Posts

Disrupting the Deepfake Pipeline in Europe

Leveraging corporate criminal liability under the Violence Against Women Directive to safeguard against pornographic deepfake exploitation.
22 February, 2024

Realising Aspirational Futures – New FLI Grants Opportunities

Our Futures Program, launched in 2023, aims to guide humanity towards the beneficial outcomes made possible by transformative technologies. This year, as … Continue reading Realising Aspirational Futures – New FLI Grants Opportunities
14 February, 2024

Gradual AI Disempowerment

Could an AI takeover happen gradually?
1 February, 2024

Exploration of secure hardware solutions for safe AI deployment

This collaboration between the Future of Life Institute and Mithril Security explores hardware-backed AI governance tools for transparency, traceability, and confidentiality.
30 November, 2023

Protect the EU AI Act

A last-ditch assault on the EU AI Act threatens to jeopardise one of the legislation's most important functions: preventing our most powerful AI models from causing widespread harm to society.
22 November, 2023

Miles Apart: Comparing key AI Act proposals

Our analysis shows that the recent non-paper drafted by Italy, France, and Germany largely fails to provide any provisions on foundation models or general purpose AI systems, and offers much less oversight and enforcement than the existing alternatives.
21 November, 2023

Can we rely on information sharing?

We have examined the Terms of Use of major General-Purpose AI system developers and found that they fail to provide assurances about the quality, reliability, and accuracy of their products or services.
26 October, 2023

Written Statement of Dr. Max Tegmark to the AI Insight Forum

The Future of Life Institute President addresses the AI Insight Forum on AI innovation and provides five US policy recommendations.
24 October, 2023

Resources

Catastrophic AI Scenarios

Concrete examples of how AI could go wrong
1 February, 2024

Introductory Resources on AI Risks

Why are people so worried about AI?
18 September, 2023

Global AI Policy

How countries and organizations around the world are approaching the benefits and risks of AI Artificial intelligence (AI) holds great … Continue reading Global AI Policy
16 December, 2022

AI Value Alignment Research Landscape

This landscape synthesizes a variety of AI safety research agendas along with other papers in AI, machine learning, ethics, governance, … Continue reading AI Value Alignment Research Landscape
16 November, 2018

Policy papers

Competition in Generative AI: Future of Life Institute’s Feedback to the European Commission’s Consultation

March 2024

Manifesto for the 2024-2029 European Commission

March 2024

FLI Response to OMB: Request for Comments on AI Governance, Innovation, and Risk Management

February 2024

FLI Response to NIST: Request for Information on NIST’s Assignments under the AI Executive Order

February 2024

Open letters

Signatories
2672

Open letter calling on world leaders to show long-view leadership on existential threats

The Elders, Future of Life Institute and a diverse range of co-signatories call on decision-makers to urgently address the ongoing impact and escalating risks of the climate crisis, pandemics, nuclear weapons, and ungoverned AI.
14 February, 2024
Signatories
31810

Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter

We call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.
22 March, 2023
Signatories
Closed

Foresight in AI Regulation Open Letter

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) promises dramatic changes in our economic and social structures as well as everyday life … Continue reading Foresight in AI Regulation Open Letter
14 June, 2020
Signatories
276

Autonomous Weapons Open Letter: Global Health Community

Given our commitment to do no harm, the global health community has a long history of successful advocacy against inhumane weapons, and the World and American Medical Associations have called for bans on nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Now, recent advances in artificial intelligence have brought us to the brink of a new arms race in lethal autonomous weapons.
13 March, 2019

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