Can AI wipe out mankind? Tech experts call for threat to be a 'global priority'

A group of prominent technology and business experts have called for artificial intelligence to be deemed a "global priority" and a threat that is as grave as health pandemics and nuclear warfare. On Tuesday, the Center for AI Safety issued a statement signed by hundreds of top executives and academics who expressed concern over the emerging risks of AI.

“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” read an excerpt of the statement. Signatories of the statement included chief executives of Google’s DeepMind, ChatGPT creator OpenAI, and the AI startup Anthropic. 

AI risks escalate as technology booms

Geoffrey Hinton, who is hailed as the trailblazer of AI, is also among them. Hinton resigned from Google citing an "existential risk" to the tech giant, which was later echoed by the UK government last week. According to Michael Osborne, a professor in machine learning at the University of Oxford and co-founder of Mind Foundry, the recently-published letter speaks volumes of the world realising that AI could become a serious concern as it booms.

“It really is remarkable that so many people signed up for this letter. That does show that there is a growing realisation among those of us working in AI that existential risks are a real concern," he said.“Because we don’t understand AI very well there is a prospect that it might play a role as a kind of new competing organism on the planet, so a sort of invasive species that we’ve designed that might play some devastating role in our survival as a species," he added. 

This isn't the first time that global leaders have expressed concern and called for regulation of AI, which has the potential to put livelihoods and job markets at risk. Calls have especially amplified since the swift rise of ChatGPT, which took the world by storm after its launch last November.