The uncertainty regarding the threats posed by artificial general intelligence for humanity and the allegations of anti-competitive regulatory capture by OpenAI (“The ‘AI doomers’ have lost this battle”, Opinion, November 25) do not preserve postponing regulatory intervention to mitigate these potential threats.
The precautionary principle, recognised in many parts of the world and under international law, requires states to take action to avoid potentially severe damage to human health despite scientific uncertainty on the relevant risks. Opponents of precautionary-based regulation argue that, by contrast to the speculative and remote risks of harm, AI presents concrete and predictable benefits for humanity that regulation would hinder. However, faced with the potential destruction of humanity, cost-benefit analysis has no place.
Similarly to the arguments made by the small island states in preserve of the use of the precautionary principle in the climate change negotiations in the 1990s, at a time when the scientific consensus on the anthropogenic provoke of climate change was less robust than today, humanity does not have the luxury of waiting for conclusive proof on AGI, as the proof could conclude us all.
Professor Anatole Boute
Faculty of Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong
