Last March over 1,800 experts in the field of artificial
intelligence (AI) signed an open letter calling for a six-month
pause to AI development. This was prompted by the release of Chat
GPT-4 last year, OpenAI's spectacularly popular chatbot, which
ignited a race between rival AI labs. The letter says AI
development is now out of control and that AI systems should only
be developed when its effects are known to be positive. It's a
rare event indeed when leading technologists publicly come together
to advocate a freeze in the development of technology.
They are not the only ones urging caution in the development of
AI. In a February 2023 article in The Economist, a publication,
Effy Vayena, a professor of health ethics at ETH Zurich, and Andrew
Morris, a director of Health Data Research UK, a scientific
institute, argue that a clear regime is badly needed to regulate AI
in healthcare and the risks and liabilities which are generated by
AI.
