Timnit Gebru
Founder of the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR); former co-lead of Google's Ethical AI team
DAIR Institute
Gebru was pushed out of Google after co-writing a paper on the dangers of large language models, then founded an independent research institute. She argues the extinction narrative is a distraction promoted by the very companies causing today's harms—exploited labour, stolen data, biased systems—and that 'AGI' is too vague to be made safe at all.
Declines to give a number
Rejects the framing: warns against "a fantasized AI-enabled utopia or apocalypse" (DAIR, March 31, 2023) and criticised the CAIS statement as elevating speculative risk "by the 'same people who have poured billions into these companies'".Source
On timing
Argues "undefined systems like 'AGI' cannot be appropriately tested for safety" and that researchers should build "defined tasks for which we can develop safety protocols, rather than attempting to build a presumably all-knowing system such as AGI" (Gebru & Torres, First Monday, April 14, 2024).
SourceWhat they call for
- Regulation enforcing transparency
- Accountability for deployed systems
- Worker protections and end to data theft
- Well scoped AI instead of AGI
- Independent, community rooted AI research
In their own words
"We need is regulation that enforces transparency" and builders "made accountable for the outputs produced by their products."
31 March 2023
'The TESCREAL bundle' argues AGI-focused organisations use 'the language of safety and benefiting humanity to evade accountability' while systems 'harm marginalized groups and centralize power.'
14 April 2024
Signed
- DAIR counter-statement to the FLI pause letter 2023