What we need to do now, as in very quickly, is to establish a moratorium on the release of additional Generative AI tools into the public/commercial sphere. This does not mean to stop research, but rather to establish the guidelines with full participation of developers, on how to avoid problematic impact from the emerging AI.
Why? Basically, AI has passed the Turing Test --- creating responses and content that are easily perceived to be human, and without any guardrails to prevent the polarization, and destructive impact we have already seen with online platforms like social media (see Surgeon General and Chaos Machine below) -- resulting in teen self harm, social unrest, political upheaval, and genocide. These undesired outcomes result from the viral attraction of fear, outrage, (inappropriate) communities, and the problematic feedback loops that amplify these. Currently algorithmic decision systems amplify these and bring them to the attention of vulnerable individuals to gain and retain their engagement. This is based on human submitted potentially fake content that is protected by "Section 230" in U.S. law. With AI generated deep fake content, AI analysis of individual persuasion factors, and real-time AI monitored and adapted responses, all of these existing outcomes can be raised to explosive levels.
Industry needs to come together, along with government(s), academia and non-profits to agree to such a moratorium. And then start the longer term work of establishing the guidelines, certification regimen, regulatory context and verification systems needed to manage the release future AI technology into products and for public/commercial use.
Relevant resources include:
U.S. Surgeon General advisory on social media impact on youth, May 2023
Center for Humane Technology March 2023 call to action: "The A.I. Dilemma" (1 hr)
outlines why generative AI is substantially different from prior AI technology, and the related risks
AI and the future of Humanity, Yuval Noah Harari April 2023 (41 min)
Geoffrey Hinton Interview (Apr 2023) (42 min)
Geoffrey resigned from Google, being a key AI executive, to raise awareness of the emerging risk
The IEEE Ethics Certification Program for Autonomous and Intelligent Systems (ECPAIS)
The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World; by Max Fisher, 2022