Stop Super AI Before it Stops Us All

Leaders of the foremost Artificial Intelligence corporations and top experts have warned of human extinction from Super AI, so it is critical that elected officials promptly pass legislation that prohibits further development of “superintelligence" and places strictly monitored and enforced limits on precursor technologies. The Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Social Justice Committee urges individuals to contact representatives and to sign the Statement on Super Intelligence. Released on October 28, it quickly garnered over 100,000 signatures: https://superintelligence-statement.org/ Lobbying is important, yet not enough. StopAI organizes regular protests in San Francisco in front of Open Ai on 3rd St.

Super AI can never be guaranteed to be safe or controllable if it becomes 100 times more intelligent than humans. "Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” said Open AI CEO Sam Altman in 2023. Open AI nevertheless, hypocritically, pushes the race to Super AI, as do Anthropic, Google, etc. If Super AI is developed, it will be self-replicating, self-preserving, and self-serving. Altman was recently subpoenaed to testify at Stop AI organizers’ trial. They were arrested for blocking the Open AI entrance. Most protesters do not risk arrest. Risking arrest is optional, except for those who feel compelled to save the world.

Extinction warnings come from the most credentialed experts including Nobel Prize and Turing Award winners, the “Godfathers of AI” Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton. Fortunately, only 5% of U.S. adults want "fast, unregulated” AI development. Erica Chenoweth’s research at Harvard found that if 3.5% of the people take persistent, strong non-violent action, they will likely win.

Social Justice Committee chair Phoebe Thomas (Sorgen) is proud of BFUU's long history of non-violent civil disobedience. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called on faith leaders nationwide to join him in Selma, BFUU sent its minister, Rev. Carl Olsen, who was attacked there by the KKK along with two other UU ministers. "Rev. James Reed died in our minister's arms. We do not anticipate dying for this cause. We anticipate dying FROM this cause if enough people do not take to the streets and also lobby to stop Super AI. Giving Senators and Representatives a daily peace o' your mind is cathartic: 800-826-3688."

Though current AI offers some important benefits, myriad problems need to be solved, e.g. its bigotry, intellectual/artistic property theft, massive loss of jobs, privacy violations, inaccuracy and dishonesty, deep fake mind control, addiction, suicides, and drastic worsening of the climate crisis by its need for huge data center gluttony of energy, water, and land.

However, humankind's most urgent task is to permanently stop development of Super AI before it stops us all. It could happen soon. Even Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Virgin's Richard Branson, and UC Berkeley professor Stuart Russell urge at least a longterm ban on developing ‘superintelligence’. Alarming statements by numerous top experts may be read at http://www.ControlAi.com/quotes.