Future of Life Institute publishes its Statement on Superintelligence |

An article reports that a group of scientists, policymakers and public figures is calling for a pause on developing superintelligence, meaning AI able to outperform all humans, until it is proven safe and controllable. The call to action was organised by the Future of Life Institute. The article frames the effort in a setting where AI development is moving very quickly with little oversight and with strong backing from the Trump administration, and says AI "doomers" have lost their foothold with US policymakers but remain active in global policy debates.

The statement had gathered more than 800 signatures at the time of writing. Signatories named include Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, described as AI pioneers, as well as Steve Wozniak, Sir Richard Branson, Susan Rice, Steve Bannon, will.i.am and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and the article calls the group diverse.

According to the statement quoted from the group's website, signatories want a ban on developing superintelligence that stays in place until there is wide scientific agreement that it can be done safely and under control, along with strong public buy-in. The group also published polling from a survey of 2,000 adults conducted between September 29 and October 5. It found that three-quarters of US adults want strong regulation of AI development, and 64 percent favour pausing advanced AI development immediately.

The article adds a caution. In early 2023 the same organisation and many of the same signatories issued a similar letter urging a six-month pause on training models more powerful than GPT-4, and that pause was largely ignored.