I’ve mentioned this before, but late last year was a revelation in AI with the public release of GPT-3. People outside the world of tech and outside the world of work reached out to me and told me I had to try this new thing. I already had.

Since then, GPT-4, Google’s Bard, and numerous other AI launches have dominated Q1 of 2023.

Sometimes it takes a revelation to understand the consequences of new innovation. For example, while the first powered flight was in 1903 and planes played an emerging role in World War I, it wasn’t until commercial planes capable of flying across the country or an ocean that regulations emerged in the U.S. to make air travel safer. It took two decades after the first flight for the Aeronautics Branch of the Department of Commerce to be formed.

Yes, the cart often comes before the horse until revelation hits. Then, concern grows.

So this week, an open letter from The Future of Life Institute signed by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, politician Andrew Yang, and even Tesla co-founder and current Twitter boss Elon Musk has asked the seemingly impossible: Pause most leading AI development right now for half a year.

[W]e call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4. This pause should be public and verifiable, and include all key actors. If such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium.

AI labs and independent experts should use this pause to jointly develop and implement a set of shared safety protocols for advanced AI design and development that are rigorously audited and overseen by independent outside experts. These protocols should ensure that systems adhering to them are safe beyond a reasonable doubt. 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.

A cooperative pause would be impressive, but it’s likely a long shot. That said, major industry players in AI have an incentive to placate concerned parties: Future customers simply won’t buy creepy technology over the long haul.

Given that this development work is happening globally, it would require the cooperation of governments around the world to mandate a pause if companies don’t agree to it. If a global pandemic with literal lives on the line couldn’t get government heads on the same track, certainly a more existential crisis of AI seems unlikely as well.

Is all hope lost for meaningful guardrails for AI, then? I don’t think so.

What is clear, though, is that pressure has to come from multiple angles. It can’t be just companies self-regulating, or governments, or the ultra-wealthy and elite. Scientists, researchers, businesses, and even consumers have a role to play in responsible and ethical AI.

Let’s keep checking our work and each other as we navigate this time together.