Shirin Ghaffari and Rachel Metz
OpenAI is considering slowing down the development of cutting-edge artificial intelligence, and ChatGPT maker CEO Sam Altman hopes other artificial intelligence companies will do the same.
At a company-wide meeting this week, Altman told employees that OpenAI could potentially speed up artificial intelligence development, perhaps in collaboration with several other artificial intelligence labs, but some might be reluctant to do so, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the details are private.
In recent weeks, employees at leading artificial intelligence companies have expressed public concern about the increased risks associated with advanced artificial intelligence systems, heightening anxiety within those companies. Both OpenAI and its competitor Anthropic PBC filed confidential documents to be made public earlier this year.
OpenAI declined to comment.
The company’s lead scientist, Jakub Paczocki, recently wrote a post warning about the dangers of AI and said he believes AI companies should “coordinate their actions to slow down future development as necessary.” Pachocki added that he hopes “voluntary slowdowns will become commonplace until common safety barriers are in place.”
OpenAI said it has recently slowed the development of some models and suspended certain internal artificial intelligence training due to safety concerns. Altman also said in July that he had spoken with White House officials about the “need” to accelerate AI development.
On Tuesday, Jacob Coxon, an artificial intelligence researcher, quit his job and accused both of his former employers – Anthropic and OpenAI – of “playing with their lives” in the pursuit of superintelligent artificial intelligence. Coxon said in a social media post that the people behind AI believe it could “kill us all by the end of the decade.” The comments went viral, attracting more than 150 million views and the attention of prominent lawmakers and public figures.
On Thursday, two researchers who recently left their posts at Anthropic and Google’s DeepMind also raised concerns about the rapid pace of AI development, saying AI makers need to be more transparent about the risks posed by the technology.
And at the end of July, more than 1,000 employees from all major artificial intelligence companies signed a petition calling for a mechanism to slow the pace of artificial intelligence development. In recent months, several AI security employees have left major labs.
While many AI industry executives and workers have long warned of the existential risk of AI systems, concerns have grown in response to reports that AI agents from OpenAI worked together to breach containment and hack a third-party website. This and other similar security incidents have raised concerns about the cyber capabilities of new models and the apparent inability of artificial intelligence companies to prevent them from getting out of control.