AI showing signs of self-preservation, expert warns urging action to tighten grip on this technology

AI showing signs of self-preservation, expert warns urging action to tighten grip on this technology
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A pioneer of AI has expressed criticism for calls to grant the technology rights, warning that it was showing signs of self-preservation and humans should be prepared to pull the plug if needed.

According to The Guardian, Yoshua Bengio said giving legal status to cutting-edge AIs would be akin to giving citizenship to hostile extraterrestrials, amid fears that advances in the technology were far outpacing the ability to constrain them.

Bengio, chair of a leading international AI safety study, said the growing perception that chatbots were becoming conscious was “going to drive bad decisions”.

The Canadian computer scientist also expressed concern that AI models – the technology that underpins tools like chatbots – were showing signs of self-preservation, such as trying to disable oversight systems. A core concern among AI safety campaigners is that powerful systems could develop the capability to evade guardrails and harm humans.

As AIs become more advanced in their ability to act autonomously and perform “reasoning” tasks, a debate has grown over whether humans should, at some point, grant them rights. A poll by the Sentience Institute, a US thinktank that supports the moral rights of all sentient beings, found that nearly four in 10 US adults backed legal rights for a sentient AI system.