What if pressing pause on the AI boom fast forwards another threat?

From American public media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Megan McCarty-Karino.

We've been talking this week about the call to slow down artificial intelligence development.

Here are those who say we need time to mitigate the potential harms.

Those who think the discourse overhypes this tech and those like Will Reinhart.

He's a senior fellow at Utah State University Center for Growth and Opportunity and he argues

a pause now could do more harm than good.

So I think the big harm that people are worried about is that effectively China and actors

within China would be able to use the time period to integrate this technology and upgrade

it for their own uses.

Specifically, it will give them the ability to catch up and start deploying these technologies

at scale.

I think the other big part of this harm is actually much more of a branding harm.

There is this call for a pause and a call to effectively create a set of standards for

the industry but no guidelines on what those standards should be.

So it creates the sense that there is a solution set out there that if we were to just pause

for six months that we would be able to actually implement them.

And what do you make of the push for regulation at this time?

The interesting thing about the pause and at least the letter is that there was a line

within the letter that effectively said, well, if companies don't do this voluntarily,

governments of the world should step in and implement a six month moratorium.

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