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PauseAI - Wikipedia

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Wikipedia article on PauseAI, a grassroots advocacy movement founded in 2023 calling for a global pause on advanced AI development until safety can be guaranteed, relevant to AI governance and existential risk discourse.

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Summary

PauseAI is a global advocacy movement founded in the Netherlands in May 2023 by Joep Meindertsma, aimed at achieving international coordination to pause development of powerful general AI systems until safety is ensured. The movement proposes establishing an international AI safety agency analogous to the IAEA and has organized protests at major AI events including the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park and the AI Seoul Summit. It emerged from concerns about existential risk from AI and the gap between AI capabilities progress and alignment research.

Key Points

  • Founded May 2023 in Utrecht, Netherlands by software entrepreneur Joep Meindertsma, inspired by Nick Bostrom's book Superintelligence.
  • Calls for a temporary pause on training the most powerful general AI systems until safety can be guaranteed.
  • Proposes an international AI safety agency similar to the IAEA to oversee AI development globally.
  • Has organized protests at major AI governance events including Bletchley Park AI Safety Summit and AI Seoul Summit across 13 countries.
  • Argues that AI alignment research is lagging behind capabilities progress, posing potential existential risk.

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Should We Pause AI Development?Crux47.0

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 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 
 
 
 
 
 
 Advocacy movement 
 

 PauseAI Formation May 2023 &#59; 2 years ago  ( 2023-05 ) Founder Joep Meindertsma Founded at Utrecht , Netherlands Type Advocacy group , Nonprofit Purpose Mitigating the existential risk from artificial intelligence and other risks of advanced artificial intelligence Region International Website pauseai.info PauseAI is a global political movement founded in the Netherlands with the stated aim of achieving global coordination to stop the development of more powerful general artificial intelligence systems, at least until it is known how to build them safely, and keep them under democratic control. [ 1 ] The movement was established in Utrecht in May 2023 by software entrepreneur Joep Meindertsma. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] 

 
 Proposal

 [ edit ] 
 PauseAI's stated goal is to "implement a temporary pause on the training of the most powerful general AI systems". Their website lists some proposed steps to achieve this goal: [ 1 ] 

 Set up an international AI safety agency, similar to the IAEA .

 Only allow training of general AI systems if their safety can be guaranteed.

 Only allow deployment of models after no dangerous capabilities are present.
 
 Background

 [ edit ] 
 During the late 2010s and early 2020s, a rapid improvement in the capabilities of artificial intelligence models known as the AI boom was underway, which included the release of large language model GPT-3 , its more powerful successor GPT-4 , and image generation models Midjourney and DALL-E . This led to an increased concern about the risks of advanced AI, causing the Future of Life Institute to release an open letter calling for "all AI labs to immediately pause for at least six months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4". The letter was signed by thousands of AI researchers and industry CEOs such as Yoshua Bengio , Stuart Russell , and Elon Musk . [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] 

 History

 [ edit ] 
 Founder Joep Meindertsma first became worried about the existential risk from artificial intelligence after reading philosopher Nick Bostrom 's 2014 book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies . He founded PauseAI in May 2023, putting his job as the CEO of a software firm on hold. Meindertsma claimed the rate of progress in AI alignment research is lagging behind the progress in AI capabilities, and said "there is a chance that we are facing extinction in a short frame of time". As such, he felt an urge to organise people to act. [ 3 ] [ 8 ] [ 4 ] 

 PauseAI's first public action was to protest in front of Microsoft's Brussels lobbying office in May 2023 during an event on artificial intelligence. [ 4 ] In Novembe

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