Navigating AI Risks and Organizational Culture
“We also understand the serious risks posed by these technologies. These risks range from the further entrenchment of existing inequalities, to manipulation and misinformation, to the loss of control of autonomous AI systems potentially resulting in human extinction.”
The first two risks: perpetuating inequity and misinformation are present and real.
The rush to fully autonomous/high consequence usages does represent a present and real risk to human life.
That’s enough without projecting skynet and human extinction.
That said, what the signatories are asking for is entirely reasonable: transparency, whistleblower protections, and a change of organizational behavior to allow for dissent.
Changing an organizational culture is really difficult. But a culture that shuts down dissent will blunder into blindspots - which is the danger. The first two can be enforced by regulatory bodies and that may help direct towards the third.
