US government warns AI may be an 'extinction-level threat' to humans

A new report commissioned by the US State Department warns the exponential development of artificial intelligence may pose a significant risk to national security and even humanity.

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The new report titled "An Action Plan to Increase the Safety and Security of Advanced AI" recommends the US government move "quickly and decisively" with implementing measures that hinder the rise of artificial intelligence-powered systems being developed, even to the point of potentially limiting compute power used to train such models. The report goes on to say that if these hindering measures aren't implemented, there is a chance of AI or Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) being an "extinction-level threat to the human species."

The US State Department report involved more than 200 experts in the field, which included officials from companies that are big players in the AI game, such as OpenAI, Meta, Google, Google DeepMind, and government workers. The report goes on to recommend the US government implement limitations on how much compute power any given party developing AI is able to have at one time while also requiring AI companies to request permission from the US government to train any new AI model.

"The rise of advanced AI and AGI [artificial general intelligence] has the potential to destabilize global security in ways reminiscent of the introduction of nuclear weapons," the report reads

Surprisingly, the report recommends the US government make it illegal to open source any powerful AI model, as the information within these models may result in "potentially devastating consequences to global security."

"I think that this recommendation is extremely unlikely to be adopted by the United States government," Greg Allen, director of the Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies, told TIME