NEW Toxic forever chemicals in drinking water: Is Canada doing enough?
As the United States sets its first national limits on toxic forever chemicals in drinking water, researchers say Canada is lagging when it comes to regulations.
Are tech companies moving too fast in rolling out powerful artificial intelligence technology that could one day outsmart humans?
That's the conclusion of a group of prominent computer scientists and other tech industry notables such as Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak who are calling for a 6-month pause to consider the risks.
Their petition published Wednesday is a response to San Francisco startup OpenAI's recent release of GPT-4, a more advanced successor to its widely-used AI chatbot ChatGPT that helped spark a race among tech giants Microsoft and Google to unveil similar applications.
WHAT DO THEY SAY?
The letter warns that AI systems with “human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity” — from flooding the internet with disinformation and automating away jobs to more catastrophic future risks out of the realms of science fiction.
It says “recent months have seen AI labs locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control.”
“We call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4,” the letter says. “This pause should be public and verifiable, and include all key actors. If such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium.”
A number of governments are already working to regulate high-risk AI tools. The United Kingdom released a paper Wednesday outlining its approach, which it said “will avoid heavy-handed legislation which could stifle innovation.” Lawmakers in the 27-nation European Union have been negotiating passage of sweeping AI rules.
WHO SIGNED IT?
The petition was organized by the nonprofit Future of Life Institute, which says confirmed signatories include the Turing Award-winning AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio and other leading AI researchers such as Stuart Russell and Gary Marcus. Others who joined include Wozniak, former U.S. presidential candidate Andrew Yang and Rachel Bronson, president of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a science-oriented advocacy group known for its warnings against humanity-ending nuclear war.
Musk, who runs Tesla, Twitter and SpaceX and was an OpenAI co-founder and early investor, has long expressed concerns about AI's existential risks. A more surprising inclusion is Emad Mostaque, CEO of Stability AI, maker of the AI image generator Stable Diffusion that partners with Amazon and competes with OpenAI's similar generator known as DALL-E.
WHAT'S THE RESPONSE?
OpenAI, Microsoft and Google didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday, but the letter already has plenty of skeptics.
“A pause is a good idea, but the letter is vague and doesn’t take the regulatory problems seriously," says James Grimmelmann, a Cornell University professor of digital and information law. "It is also deeply hypocritical for Elon Musk to sign on given how hard Tesla has fought against accountability for the defective AI in its self-driving cars.”
As the United States sets its first national limits on toxic forever chemicals in drinking water, researchers say Canada is lagging when it comes to regulations.
Drivers in Eastern Canada face a big increase in gas prices because of various factors, especially the higher cost of the summer blend, industry analysts say.
Calgary police have arrested a man and a charge is pending in connection with the death of a toddler in 2022.
The journey to home ownership can be exciting, but personal finance columnist Christopher Liew warns about the trappings of becoming 'house poor' -- where an overwhelming portion of your income is devoured by housing costs. Liew offers some practical strategies to maintain better financial health while owning a home.
A Winnipeg woman was sentenced to house arrest after a single date with a man she met online culminated in her harassing him for years, and spurred false allegations which resulted in the innocent man being arrested three times.
New archeological investigations in Guatemala reveal that the ancient Maya people had a ritual of burning royal human remains as a public display of political regime change.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
Prince William will return to public duties on Thursday for the first time since his wife Kate revealed she was undergoing preventative chemotherapy for cancer.
Russian air defences downed what authorities described as five Ukrainian balloons overnight, the defence ministry in Moscow said Thursday, as the sides kept up long-range strikes that have featured heavily in what has largely become a war of attrition.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.
While many people choose to keep their medical appointments private, four longtime friends decided to undergo vasectomies as a group in B.C.'s Lower Mainland.
A popular highway in Alberta's Banff National Park now has a 'no stopping zone' to help protect two bears.
B.C. resident Robert Conrad spent thousands of hours on Crown land developing an unusual bond with deer.
A Sudbury woman said her husband was bringing the recycling out to the curb Wednesday night when he had to make a 'mad dash' inside after seeing a bear.