Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have joined prominent computer scientists, economists, artists, evangelical Christian leaders and American conservative commentators Steve Bannon and Glenn Beck to call for a ban on AI “superintelligence” that threatens humanity.
The letter, released Wednesday by a politically and geographically diverse group of public figures, takes direct aim at tech giants like Google, OpenAI and Meta Platforms, which are competing to develop a form of artificial intelligence designed to outperform humans at many tasks.
The letter calls for a ban unless certain conditions are met
The 30-word explanation says:
“We call for a ban on the development of superintelligence, which must not be lifted until there is broad scientific consensus that it will occur safely and controllably, and strong public support.”
In a preamble, the letter states that AI tools can bring health and wealth, but alongside those tools, “many leading AI companies have the stated goal of building a superintelligence in the coming decade that can significantly outperform all humans in virtually all cognitive tasks. This has raised concerns ranging from economic obsolescence and human disempowerment, to the loss of freedom, civil liberties, dignity and control, to national.” Security is enough.” Risks and even the possible extinction of humanity.”
Who signed and what they say about it
Prince Harry added in a personal note: “The future of AI should serve humanity, not replace it. I believe the true test of progress will not be how fast we move, but how cleverly we steer. There are no second chances.”
In addition to the Duke of Sussex, his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, also signed.
“This is not a ban or even a moratorium in the usual sense,” wrote another signatory, Stuart Russell, an AI pioneer and computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “It is simply a proposal to require adequate security measures for a technology that, according to its developers, poses a significant risk of human extinction. Is that too much to ask?”
AI pioneers Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton, co-winners of the Turing Award, the highest prize in computer science, also signed. Hinton also won a Nobel Prize in physics last year. Both were vocal about the dangers of a technology they helped develop.
But the list also contains some surprises, including Bannon and Beck, with whom organizers of the letter from the nonprofit Future of Life Institute seek to appeal to President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, even as Trump’s White House aides have sought to ease restrictions on AI development in the United States
Also on the list are Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak; British billionaire Richard Branson; former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, who served under Republican and Democratic administrations; and Democratic foreign policy expert Susan Rice, who was national security adviser to President Barack Obama.
Former Irish President Mary Robinson and several British and European parliamentarians and former members of the US Congress signed, as did actors Stephen Fry and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and musician will.i.am, who has otherwise embraced AI in music production.
“Yes, we want specific AI tools that can help cure diseases, strengthen national security, etc.,” wrote Gordon-Levitt, whose wife Tasha McCauley was on OpenAI’s board before the upheaval that led to the transient ouster of CEO Sam Altman in 2023. “But does AI have to imitate humans, groom our children, turn us all into slop junkies and make millions of dollars? Advertising? Most people don’t want that.”
Are concerns about AI superintelligence also fueling the AI hype?
The letter is likely to spark ongoing debates within the AI research community about the likelihood of superhuman AI, the technical ways to achieve it, and how threatening it could be.
“In the past, it was mostly the nerds against the nerds,” said Max Tegmark, president of the Future of Life Institute and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “I feel like what we’re really seeing here is that criticism has become very mainstream.”
Complicating the broader debates, the same companies pursuing what some call superintelligence and others call artificial general intelligence (AGI) are also sometimes increasing the performance of their products, which can make them more marketable and has contributed to concerns about an AI bubble. OpenAI was recently ridiculed by mathematicians and AI scientists when its researcher claimed that ChatGPT discovered unsolved mathematical problems – when in reality it only found and summarized what was already online.
“There are a lot of things that are overrated and as an investor you have to be careful, but that doesn’t change the fact that AI has evolved much faster in the last four years than most people predicted,” Tegmark said.
Tegmark’s group was also behind a March 2023 letter – still at the beginning of a commercial AI boom – that called on the tech giants to temporarily pause the development of more powerful AI models. None of the major AI companies have heeded this call. And the most prominent signatory of the 2023 letter, Elon Musk, was simultaneously quietly launching his own AI startup to compete with those he wanted to take a six-month hiatus.
Asked whether he had reached out to Musk again this time, Tegmark said he had written to the CEOs of all major AI developers in the US but did not expect them to sign.
“Honestly, I have a lot of sympathy for them because they are so stuck in this race to the bottom that they just feel an irresistible pressure to keep going and not be overtaken by the other guy,” Tegmark said. “I think that’s why it’s so important to stigmatize the superintelligence race so much that the U.S. government just steps in.”
Google, Meta, OpenAI and Musk’s xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
