More than 1,000 experts in the artificial intelligence community have called for an immediate pause on the development of “giant” AI systems like GPT-4 for at least six months. The open letter was signed by major AI players such as Elon Musk, Emad Mostaque, and Steve Wozniak, as well as engineers from major tech companies such as Amazon, DeepMind, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, and academics like Gary Marcus.

The letter calls for a pause so that the capabilities and dangers of systems like GPT-4 can be studied and mitigated, citing Sam Altman of OpenAI, who said, “At some point, it may be important to get independent review before starting to train future systems, and for the most advanced efforts to agree to limit the rate of growth of compute used for creating new models.” The letter also suggests that if researchers do not voluntarily pause their work on AI models, then “governments should step in.”

Regulating AI: On Wednesday, the British government announced its plan for regulating the artificial intelligence (AI) industry. In the white paper presented before Parliament, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has developed five core principles which it expects companies to abide by. The principles include safety, security and robustness; transparency and explainability; fairness; accountability and governance; and contestability and redress. Instead of creating brand-new regulations, the government has requested regulators to apply already existing regulations and inform companies of their duties as per the white paper.