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PauseAI protest @ Office for AI - June 29th

  • PauseAI protest, urging Rishi Sunak to implement a pause on AI development.
  • Where: Office for AI, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, 100 Parliament Street, Westminster, London, SW1A 2BQ
  • When: 29th of June, 4 PM - 6 PM
  • Sign up here

Press Release

On Thursday, June 29th, volunteers from the new PauseAI

movement will gather at the Office for AI, Parliament Square, London to urge the UK government to take the lead on pausing the development of more powerful and dangerous AI systems.

A large number of AI experts signed a statement

earlier this month that read:

“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

This has been signed by virtually all AI labs (OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic) and hundreds of AI scientists including Geoffrey Hinton, the “Godfather of AI”.

AI safety researchers have not reached a consensus on how large the risk of human extinction will be. Results from the “Existential risk from AI survey”

show that estimates range from 2% to 98%, with an average of 30%.

The UK is currently taking the international lead on AI Safety regulations, as the government announced on June 7th

that it will be hosting the first AI Safety Summit this autumn.

Last week, Rishi Sunak introduced the AI Safety Taskforce, with Ian Hogarth as its captain. This taskforce is backed with an initial £100 million of government funding.

However, Sunak tweeted

that the goal of the AI Safety taskforce is also to “Dramatically speed up UK AI capability”. This is in stark contrast to what the newly appointed lead of the AI Safety Taskforce, Ian Hogarth, wrote in May, in his Financial Times article “We Must Slow Down the Race to God-Like AI”.

The protesters are urging Rishi Sunak to take the lead on global AI safety and pause the development of more dangerous AI systems in the UK.

“Accelerating right now is a dangerous strategy, and the wrong message to the nations at the AI safety summit. Rishi Sunak should lead by example and implement the Pause!” - PauseAI protesters

“The UK is organising an AI safety summit at the end of this year, but that might be too late. We need to slow down right now.” - PauseAI protesters

“The UK is in a fantastic place to develop the concrete safety requirements that would set the precedent for the AI safety summit later this year. There is no other country that has this concentration of AI safety experts.” - PauseAI protesters

“Implementing a national pause on AI development would be a bold move, but it would give us the time we need to get this right, and it would set a precedent for other countries to follow. This is essential for making the AI safety summit a success.” - PauseAI protesters

“AI companies are putting everything at risk; we’re already seeing the damage, and it will get far worse. Technology development is not inevitable, and pausing should be considered a feasible option. We can’t cede the future to a few CEOs who acknowledge they are willing to risk humanity for their dreams. We all deserve a say on our future, and a global pause gives us that chance. However, that global Pause becomes far more likely if we implement a national one first!” - PauseAI protesters

“We may not have the luxury of time. AI developments are happening at a frantic pace, and we need to act now to prevent the worst-case scenarios. The summit in autumn could be even too late to prevent the worst. We urge Rishi Sunak to halt AI developments before the summit. Even if only the UK and the US agree to pause until the summit, we will have made a huge step towards preventing the worst-case scenarios.” - PauseAI protesters

The PauseAI protesters have concrete agenda suggestions and policy proposals for the summit.

For more information, please visit PauseAI.info

.