Activists across the globe have taken extreme action after declaring an AI 'emergency' with one man going on a hunger strike outside of Google's London offices in an attempt to save humanity.
While artificial intelligence is deemed as the biggest new technology by those driving its innovation, millions of people across the world have highlighted the countless issues it currently possess.
It poses an immediate threat to global employment as countless people are already losing their jobs to AI with things only deemed to get much worse in the near future, and a number of tragic deaths have caused people to question whether it's actually safe for people to use in its current state.
Experts have also highlighted their worries about the long-term ramifications of AI usage, especially if it continues to increase at its current trajectory, as it could have serious environmental consequences and could even become hostile if left in the wrong hands.
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Considering all of these concerns it's not surprising that some are taking things into their own hands to try and force change, and for two dedicated individuals that's taken form in a hunger strike outside of some of the world's biggest AI offices.
As reported by AOL, both Guido Reichstadter and Michael Trazzi have started hunger strikes outside the offices of Anthropic and Google DeepMind respectively, calling for companies to halt AI development in an 'emergency' situation.
45-year-old Reichstadter has been surviving exclusively on water, multivitamins, and electrolytes for over a week now having started his hunger strike on August 31, and he is calling for Anthropic to pull out of an AI race that is increasingly dangerous for humanity.
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"I am calling on Anthropic's management, directors, and employees to immediately stop their reckless actions," Reichstadter wrote in a post on LessWrong, "which are harming our society and to work to remediate the harm that has already been caused."
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Speaking to Business Insider, he revealed that he had asked Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei – who himself had previously outlined the potential dangers of AI – to "stop developing that technology and do everything in his power to stop the race that he's participating in.
"In the concrete world in which we're living right now, all of the frontier labs are racing as quickly as they can to fully generate superhuman systems," he continued. "That's what needs to stop. I think great things could be done with very limited systems that don't need to pose the same kinds of risks."
His actions have inspired others across the globe, with 29-year-old Michael Trazzi starting another hunger strike outside of Google's DeepMind offices in London.
Trazzi has previously studied AI development and safety, and remains similarly concerned about the rapid development of the technology in the hands of these big companies.
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His demands aren't quite as extreme as Reichstadter, but he still wants DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis to make a statement that he believes would have a significant effect on the industry.
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"My only ask is, concretely, I want Demis to say that he would not release any more frontier models if the other frontier AI labs were to also stop doing so," Trazzi explained. "If enough of those leaders say it publicly, then you get global coordination around a pause."