existential

The United Nations Security Council is set to hold its first-ever meeting to address the potential threats posed by artificial intelligence (AI) to international peace and security. This meeting, organized by the United Kingdom during its presidency of the council, is scheduled for July 18. The UK Ambassador, Barbara Woodward, highlighted the tremendous potential of AI, but also acknowledged major risks, such as its use in autonomous weapons or controlling nuclear weapons.UN Council meetingThe event will feature…

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. The rise of ChatGPT and similar artificial intelligence systems has been accompanied by a sharp increase in anxiety about AI. For the past few months, executives and AI safety researchers have been offering predictions, dubbed “P(doom),” about the probability that AI will bring about a large-scale catastrophe. Worries peaked in May 2023 when the nonprofit research and advocacy organization Center…

Michaela Merkas wasn’t going to miss seeing Margot Robbie in person.Since last year, she and friend Olivia Hooker have been obsessively following the increasingly lavish promotion for the upcoming Barbie movie – and now they’re crammed into a crowd in Sydney’s Pitt Street Mall, where the film’s stars Margot Robbie and America Ferrera are joining the first fan event of a global publicity tour.Margot Robbie, America Ferrera and Issa Rae at the Barbie promo event at Sydney’s Pitt Street Mall. Photograph: James Gourley/Getty…

What happens next? This does not mean the EU is going to adopt these policies outright. Next, members of the European Parliament will have to thrash out details with the Council of the European Union and the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, before the draft rules become law. The final legislation will be a compromise between three different drafts from the three institutions. European lawmakers are aiming to get the AI Act in final shape by December, and the regulation should be in force by 2026.  You can…

The starkest assertion, signed by all those figures and many more, is a 22-word statement put out two weeks ago by the Center for AI Safety (CAIS), an agenda-pushing research organization based in San Francisco. It proclaims: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” The wording is deliberate. “If we were going for a Rorschach-test type of statement, we would have said ‘existential risk’ because that can mean a lot of…

AI pioneer Yann LeCun. Jérémy Barande/Wikimedia Commons AI pioneer Yann LeCun has described talk of artificial intelligence (AI) posing an existential threat to humanity as “preposterously ridiculous.” Speaking to the BBC this week at an AI-focused event held in Paris by Meta, where he now works as the company’s chief AI scientist, Professor LeCun said: “Will AI take over the world? No, this is a projection of human nature on machines.” LeCun’s comments are in stark contrast to those made by Geoffrey Hinton and…

Add Eric Schmidt to the list of tech luminaries concerned about the dangers of AI. The former Google chief tells guests at The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council Summit that AI represents an "existential risk" that could get many people "harmed or killed." He doesn't feel that threat is serious at the moment, but he sees a near future where AI could help find software security flaws or new biology types. It's important to ensure these systems aren't "misused by evil people," the veteran executive says. Schmidt doesn't have…

Deep learning pioneer Geoffrey Hinton announced on Monday that he was stepping down from his role as a Google AI researcher after a decade with the company. He says he wants to speak freely as he grows increasingly worried about the potential harms of artificial intelligence. Prior to the announcement, Will Douglas Heaven, MIT Technology Review’s senior editor for AI, interviewed Hinton about his concerns—read the full story here. Soon after, the two spoke at EmTech Digital, MIT Technology Review’s signature AI event.…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeSeth Rogen has been left somewhat thrown by a Knocked Up throwback photo.On Instagram, director Judd Apatow posted the snap that showed the film’s main cast alongside the baby playing the child of Rogen and Katherine Heigl’s characters.The comedy was released in 2007, and Apatow pointed out that the baby in the photo is now 17.This fact made Rogen and co-star Martin Starr feel very old…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeSeth Rogen has been left somewhat thrown by a Knocked Up throwback photo.On Instagram, director Judd Apatow posted the snap that showed the film’s main cast alongside the baby playing the child of Rogen and Katherine Heigl’s characters.The comedy was released in 2007, and Apatow pointed out that the baby in the photo is now 17.This fact made Rogen and co-star Martin Starr feel very old…