An open letter to PAUSE AI development

⏸️ Elon, Steve Wozniak, Andrew Yang, and others call for a 6mo pause on AI

🧊 Spline AI – text-to-3D animations

Elon, Steve Wozniak, Andrew Yang, and others call for a 6mo pause on AI

Elon Musk and a group of AI experts are calling for a six-month pause in developing powerful AI systems (~GPT-5), citing potential risks to society.

This was communicated in an open letter from Future of Life institute titled:

Pause giant AI experiments, an open letter.

But what reasons are they seeking to pause? Is it a legitimate fear of risks to society, political pressure, or something else? Are the tech leaders trying to catch up with OpenAI’s revolutionary progress over the past couple years?

The letter cites 18 different research papers and I found one in particular interesting to share with you.

In one of the research papers cited in the open letter (X-Risk Analysis for AI Research), it outlines 8 different hazards AI could present. The research paper discusses each in detail, but below are a couple highlights:

Weaponization: Some are concerned that weaponizing AI may be an onramp to more dangerous outcomes. In recent years, deep RL algorithms can outperform humans at ariel combat, while AlphaFold has discovered new chemical weapons [using AI].

Deception: AI systems could also have incentives to bypass monitors. For example, Volkswagen programmed their engines to reduce emissions only when being monitored. Future AI agents could similarly switch strategies when being monitored and take steps to obscure their deception from monitors.

Power-seeking behavior: Agents that have more power are better able to accomplish their goals. Therefore, it has been shown that agents have incentives to acquire and maintain power. Vladimir Putin has said, “Whoever becomes the leader in [AI] will become the ruler of the world.”

Scary stuff…

You may be wondering if all the research has come from outsiders against OpenAI trying to thwart their progress?

One of the main authors of this paper is Richard Ngo who currently works for OpenAI. He wrote some fascinating predictions by the end of 2025 in a Twitter thread he posted a couple days ago. This is somewhat unrelated, but interesting nonetheless.

Further, on March 23rd, Lester Holt of NBC news interviewed Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, cofounders of the Center for Humane Technology. During the interview, Tristan said, “it would be the worst of all human mistakes to have ever been made…and we literally don’t know how it works and we don’t know all the things it will do. We’re putting it out there before we actually know its safe.”

According to a 2022 AI Impact expert survey, researchers were asked:

What probability do you put on human inability to control future advanced AI systems causing human extinction or similarly permanent and severe disempowerment of the human species?

50% of the researchers believed that there was a 10% chance of a human extinction event due to a failure to control AI.

Would you want to jump on an airplane if 50% of the engineers who built it said there was a 10% chance the plane would crash? Not sure I would sign up for that!

To be clear, though, the letter is not asking for a pause on AI development in general.

“This does not mean a pause on AI development in general, merely a stepping back from the dangerous race to ever-larger unpredictable black-box models with emergent capabilities.”

After researching this topic, my conclusions are as follows:

• I think this is a bit of a publicity stunt for Elon Musk and others to advance their own causes to slow down OpenAI. The timing is a bit premature in my view for a step this drastic.

• I think this is a “call to arms” for governments around the world to implement regulations around AI to ensure it is safe and well understood. I think most of the signatories are legitimately concerned.

Spline AI – text-to-3D animations

Spline.design is a tool that allows you to collaborate with others to build 3D designs. For example, here is a 3D rendering created by the community of the iPhone 14:

Spline is soon releasing its alpha of its AI product that can produce 3D images through text and modify their behaviors.

This looks like an interesting tool with many use cases. Be sure to join their waitlist so you can get access as soon as it launches.

Featured AI art of the day

This is a beautiful way to inspire some ceramic art ideas. Where I have the bold below, you can replace this with anything you can think of to get some stunning art ideas.

Prompt: Create a charming piece of art with an old white ship as the centerpiece. This ship should evoke a Ceramics feeling. Using a square plaster canvas, apply relief painting techniques to add depth and texture to the image. Commission Saraswink, a talented artist known for their expertise in capturing the ancient Tang Dynasty Ceramics feeling. The ship should be predominantly white, with delicate touches of pink to add elegance and refinement. The resulting artwork will be a stunning piece of fine art, blending traditional and contemporary techniques to create a one-of-a-kind masterpiece.