Bill Gates, pictured here speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, says stopping GAI development is not a good solution to preventing issues. (Source: Sebastian Derungs, swiss-image.ch, via Wikimedia)

Gates: Slowing Pace of General AI Development Wouldn’t Solve Future Problems

Now that ChatGPT is widely available, Bill Gates, co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft, says that trying to put the genie back in the bottle is a fruitless gesture that would negatively impact major companies and likely not solve any potential problems.

He responded to a petition by more than a thousand tech experts for a six-month moratorium on  General AI development that’s more advanced than GPT4. He said their efforts would only impact the United States—while countries around the world would be moving forward with GAI programming. China, among other countries, has heavily invested in GAI development.

“I don’t think asking one particular group to pause solves the challenges,” Gates told Reuters on Monday.

Microsoft stands to be one of the greatest beneficiaries of the GAI race, after investing $1 billion in Open AI for the rights to use ChatGPT for its search engine, Bing. The philanthropist recently posted on his blog in praise of AI.

“In a blog titled ‘The Age of AI has begun’ which was published and dated March 21, a day before the open letter, he said he believes AI should be used to help reduce some of the world’s worst inequities.”

The U.S. government has yet to establish any protocols, laws or ethical enforcement of AI, though it issued guidelines.

read more at reuters.com