[This is a guest post by Ben Green. I suppose the letter, and am also a (corresponding) Fellow, but I have worked in various collaborations with the AI industry and so was not eligible to be a signatory. — T.]
The rapid development of AI is of enormous public interest right now, with the possible existential risk to humanity being reported by mainstream news organisations. However, the discussion is often tempered with questions such as haven’t we heard this before?’ or isn’t this just hype from the AI companies or a desire to protect their interests?’. As widely reported in this blog and elsewhere, we as mathematicians (perhaps more than other scientists) can see independently, and very clearly, that we should be very worried about the speed of development. We should make this point loudly. 42 mathematician Fellows of the Royal Society have today written to the president of the society, Sir Paul Nurse, to make this point.
The open letter may be read here and mathematicians are encouraged to support it by signing the letter at this link.