Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have joined prominent American computer scientists, economists, artists, evangelical Christian leaders and conservative commentators Steve Bannon and Glenn Beck in calling for a ban on AI “superintelligence” that threatens humanity.
The letter, released Wednesday by a group of politically and geographically diverse public figures, speaks directly to tech giants like Google, OpenAI and Meta Platforms who are racing to build a form of artificial intelligence designed to outperform humans at many tasks.
Letter calls for ban unless certain conditions are met
The 30-word statement says:
“We call for a ban on the development of superintelligence, which is not lifted until there is broad scientific consensus that it will be done in a safe and controllable manner, and strong public support. »
In a preamble, the letter notes that AI tools can bring health and prosperity, but that alongside these tools, “many major AI companies have a stated goal of building superintelligence over the coming decade, capable of significantly outperforming all humans in virtually all cognitive tasks. This has raised concerns, ranging from economic obsolescence and loss of power of man, losses of freedom, civil liberties, dignity and control, risks to national security. and even potential extinction of humanity.
Who signed and what they say about it
Prince Harry added in a personal note that “the future of AI should serve humanity, not replace it. I believe the true test of progress will not be how quickly we move, but how wisely we lead. There are no second chances.”
Alongside the Duke of Sussex, his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, signed.
“This is not a ban or even a moratorium in the usual sense,” wrote another signatory, Stuart Russell, an AI pioneer and professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. “This is simply a proposal to require adequate safety measures for a technology that its developers believe has a high chance of causing the extinction of humanity. Is that too much to ask?”
AI pioneers Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, co-winners of the Turing Award, computing’s most prestigious prize, also signed. Hinton too won a Nobel Prize in physics last year. Both were noisy by drawing attention to the dangers of a technology they helped create.
But the list also has some surprises, including Bannon and Beck, in an attempt by the letter’s organizers, at the nonprofit Future of Life Institute, to appeal to President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, even as Trump’s White House staff did so. sought to ease restrictions on the development of AI in the United States
Also on the list are Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak; British billionaire Richard Branson; former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations; and democratic foreigners Susan Rice, policy expertwho was national security advisor to President Barack Obama.
Ancient Irish President Mary Robinson and several British and European parliamentarians and former members of the American Congress have signed, as have the actors Stephen Fry and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and the musician will.i.am, who has also signed adopted AI in music creation.
“Yes, we want specific AI tools that can help cure diseases, strengthen national security, etc.,” wrote Gordon-Levitt, whose wife, Tasha McCauley, served on OpenAI’s board of directors before the upheaval that led to the CEO appointment. The temporary ouster of Sam Altman in 2023. “But should AI also imitate humans, cure our children, turn us all into drug addicts and make millions of dollars serving ads? Most people don’t want that.”
Are concerns about AI superintelligence also fueling AI hype?
The letter is likely to spark ongoing debates within the AI research community about the likelihood of superhuman AI, the technical pathways to achieve it, and how dangerous it could be.
“In the past, it was mostly nerds versus nerds,” said Max Tegmark, president of the Future of Life Institute and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “I think what we’re really seeing here is how criticism has become very common.”
What complicates broader debates is that the same companies striving to achieve this some call superintelligence and others call artificial general intelligence, or AGIalso sometimes inflate the capabilities of their products, which can make them more marketable and has contributed to concerns about an AI bubble. OpenAI was recently ridiculed by mathematicians and AI scientists when its researcher claimed that ChatGPT had solved unsolved mathematical problems – when in reality it had found and summarized what was already online.
“There are a ton of things that are overblown and you have to be careful as an investor, but that doesn’t change the fact that — zooming out — AI has advanced much faster in the last four years than most people predicted,” Tegmark said.
Tegmark’s group was also behind a Letter from March 2023 – still at the dawn of a Commercial AI boom – which called on tech giants to temporarily pause the development of more powerful AI models. None of the major AI companies responded to this call. And the most important signatory of the 2023 letter, Elon Musk, was at the same time quietly founding his own AI startup to compete with those he wanted to take a 6-month break from.
When asked if he had contacted Musk again this time, Tegmark said he had written to the CEOs of all the major AI developers in the United States, but did not expect them to sign.
“Frankly, I really sympathize with them, because they’re so stuck in this race to the bottom that they feel an irresistible pressure to keep going and not get passed by the other guy,” Tegmark said. “I think that’s why it’s so important to stigmatize the race for super-intelligence, to the point where the U.S. government is intervening.”
Google, Meta, OpenAI and Musk’s xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
