OpenAI Chief Scientist: “Based on internal results, I have a strong expectation that this speed of progress could be sustained into recursive self-improvement”

“Based on internal results, I have a strong expectation that this speed of progress could be sustained into recursive self-improvement.

“If AI development continues along its current path, the systems we’ll see in the next few years are likely to represent further capability jumps of equal or larger magnitude, and to increasingly drive their own development.”

“Machine intelligence playing a larger and larger role in its own development process is a natural conclusion of sustained technological progress.”

“We focus OpenAI research towards RSI as we believe it is the only way to remain at the frontier of AI research moving forward.”

“Undertakings that would have taken thousands of experts now will be achievable by a few people operating a large computer.”

This is a time that calls for extreme caution. I am concerned no one is prepared for the consequences of a continued rapid rise in machine intelligence. OpenAI will continue to seek technical solutions to alignment and monitoring, to build defensive systems and unilaterally withhold further scaling as needed; however, I believe broader interventions are required.

In line with Ray Kurzweil’s predictions from the end of the XXth century, we now find ourselves at the moment in history of computing where machine intelligence is starting to exceed that of humans in transformative ways.

Currently I believe that no lab has solved alignment and monitoring to a sufficient degree to continue responsibly scaling at maximum speed for much longer. I expect and hope for voluntary slowdowns to become commonplace until shared safety bars are established. And I believe that international coordination on future AI development needs to become a top priority for governments around the world. https://openai.com/index/an-alien-mind/