Tech billionaire one of 1000 signatories seeking a pause in AI but what are they frightened of?

For a man who made his fortune out of technology it might seem odd for Elon Musk to seek a slowdown in its spread: Picture: AFP

A Luddite is defined as a person opposed to new technology or ways of working.

The word dates from the 19th century groups of English workers who destroyed machinery they believed would take their jobs.

It’s a deeply pejorative term in the age of speedy hi-tech, but one that could technically be applied to Elon Musk and others, who this week called for a pause on the development of AI so we can all take a breath and figure out where we want to go on this remarkable technology.

But the 1000 people who have signed the open letter organised by not-for-profit think tank the Future of Life Institute are unlikely to be labelled as Luddites. That’s because the latest manifestation of AI, specifically the bot called ChatGPT, has at one level frightened the life out of the world. For many, calling a halt to tech sounds like an idea whose time has come, not a retrograde idea.

The original Luddites were prompted to take action by their fear of job losses, something that hovers over the AI explosion.

The present fear is also generated by the worry about an intelligence that in some ways is smarter, or certainly a lot faster, than human intelligence.

The open letter talks of ­machines flooding information channels with propaganda and untruths – something already well entrenched in our society. More problematic is the question posed by Musk and cosignatories: “Should we develop non-human minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us?”

The idea that ChatGPT’s descendants could eventually run amok and rule us is in the realm of science fiction, but its ability to ruin the lives we know as workers is real enough.

We know already that many “knowledge work” tasks will feasibly be carried out in the near ­future by one manager with several AI programs rather than one manager with four of five workers.

ChatGPT, produced by OpenAI, which Musk himself co-founded, was a shock when it appeared later last year.

Rarely have so many words been written so rapidly by so many people about a technological breakthrough. (And yes, some of those words were written by the bot as everyone decided to try this accessible tool for themselves.)

Ethan Mollick, an associate professor of management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in the Harvard Business Review that the bot “crosses a threshold; it’s genuinely useful for a wide range of tasks, from creating software to generating business ideas to writing a wedding toast”.

It was, he wrote, “a very big deal. The businesses that understand the significance of this change will be at a considerable advantage.

“Until now, AI has primarily been aimed at problems where failure is expensive, not at tasks where occasional failure is cheap and acceptable or even ones in which experts can easily separate failed cases from successful ones.

“Applying AI to creative and expressive tasks (writing marketing copy) rather than dangerous and repetitive ones (driving a forklift) opens a world of applications … This is why the world has suddenly changed. The traditional boundaries of jobs have suddenly shifted. Machines can now do tasks that could only be done by highly trained humans.”

It’s heady stuff, and reading that essay several months ago, when the debate was focused (somewhat hysterically) on how dangerous ChatGPT might be to our children’s education, offered an indication of just what a game changer AI will be for business. Which is why the idea of pausing its development seems unlikely, if not impossible.

As we have seen in the past 20 or more years, tech waits for no man or woman: there has been an inevitability about tech developments, irrespective of the negative impacts on society.

Think about the internet and the dark web with its content on sex, drugs, guns and violence that goes well beyond acceptable levels for any society; think of the way we have allowed a whole generation of children to be exposed to pornography online; the explosion of hate on Twitter; the way we take for granted that entire populations are attached to their mobile phones except when sleeping.

There is plenty of research and much awareness of the downsides of tech, yet not enough has been done to rein in the worst of its ­applications.

The open letter talks of a voluntary pause by researchers on their work on the more extreme ends of AI – with government intervention as a last resort. In your dreams, many would argue, given the free market (in ideas as well as goods) that underpins our economy. Yet this may be the crunch point for tech, in ways that people like Musk don’t necessarily want.

If, in fact, jobs disappear in the knowledge work sector in the next 10 or 20 years, leaving a swag of people unemployed or drastically underemployed on low-paid jobs, what happens to welfare budgets? How long before the universal basic income, which has seemed like an unrealistic left-wing dream until now, becomes part of mainstream policy discussion?

Much lies ahead of the West when it come to dealing with the upsides and downsides of AI. Many of the claims being made for the technology will prove to be wrong, but some will come to pass. ChatGPT already has morphed into new versions, such as GPT-4, which is reported to be able to turn a drawing into a website; and create a video game in 60 seconds.

That’s surely the upside – machines that can make more sense, much more quickly, of the information patterns that human thought is built upon. Society has a right – and indeed, a responsibility – to manage technology. The open letter and the high profile of those who have signed should prove a spur to the debate we need – even if a pause proves ­illusive.