GENERAL PURPOSE AI COULD LEAD TO ARRAY OF NEW RISKS, EXPERTS SAY IN REPORT AHEAD OF AI SUMMIT

Advanced artificial intelligence systems have the potential to create extreme new risks, such as fueling widespread job losses, enabling terrorism or running amok, experts said in a first-of-its-kind international report this week cataloging the range of dangers posed by the technology.

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The International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI is being released ahead of a major AI summit in Paris next month. The paper is backed by 30 countries including the U.S. and China, marking rare cooperation between the two countries as they battle over AI supremacy, highlighted by Chinese startup DeepSeek stunning the world this week with its budget chatbot in spite of U.S. export controls on advanced chips to the country.

The report by a group of independent experts is a "synthesis" of existing research intended to help guide officials working on drawing up guardrails for the rapidly advancing technology, Yoshua Bengio, a prominent AI scientist who led the study, told in an interview.

"The stakes are high," the report says, noting that while a few years ago the best AI systems could barely spit out a coherent paragraph, now they can write computer programs, generate realistic images and hold extended conversations.

While some AI harms are already widely known, such as deepfakes, scams and biased results, the report said that “as general-purpose AI becomes more capable, evidence of additional risks is gradually emerging" and risk management techniques are only in their early stages.

It comes amid warnings this week about artificial intelligence from the Vatican and the group behind the Doomsday Clock.