In the summer of 1974, a group of international researchers published an urgent open letter asking their colleagues to suspend work on a potentially dangerous new technology. The letter was a first in the history of science — and now, half a century later, it has happened again.
Some AI scientists had already called for cautious AI research back in 2017, but their concern drew little public attention until the arrival of generative AI, first released publicly as ChatGPT. Suddenly, an AI tool could write stories, paint pictures, conduct conversations, even write songs — all previously unique human abilities. The March letter suggested that AI might someday turn hostile and even possibly become our evolutionary replacement.
Although 50 years apart, the debates that followed the DNA and AI letters have a key similarity: In both, a relatively specific concern raised by the researchers quickly became a public proxy for a whole range of political, social and even spiritual worries.
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Both the genome and consciousness evolved over millions of years, and to assume that we can reverse-engineer either in a few decades is a tad presumptuous. Yet if such hubris leads to excess caution, that is a good thing. Before we actually have our hands on the full controls of either evolution or consciousness, we will have plenty of time to figure out how to proceed like responsible adults.
