South African President Warns of Dangers of Using AI to Develop Biological Weapons
A visitor past by an ad promoting Artificial Intelligence for the upcoming World Artificial Intelligence Conference held in Shanghai, Wednesday, July 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
NEW DELHI (Sputnik) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday warned of the risk that artificial intelligence could be used in the development of biological weapons and called for developing measures to protect against AI-related risks. The 18th BRICS summit took place in New Delhi on September 12-13. On Saturday, the leaders adopted the New Delhi Declaration, outlining the direction for future cooperation among the member nations. «We must listen carefully to what those who are developing the most powerful AI systems are themselves telling us. They are warning against systems that are capable of advanced cyber operations, assistance in biological weapons development, autonomous action, manipulation, mass surveillance, disruption of employment, and ultimately systems whose capabilities may become difficult for human beings to control,» the president said at the BRICS summit in India. 
Beyond PoliticsChina Performs World’s First Congenital Heart Surgery Guided by AI-Powered Robot6 September, 12:10 GMTAt the same time, AI offers broad opportunities to develop the economy and improve people’s lives, the South African president said. «We must never reach a situation where technological capability has moved beyond our capacity to understand it, supervise it and control it. South Africa accordingly proposes that BRICS should establish an international mechanism for the independent scientific evaluation of AI,» Ramaphosa added. Earlier in the week, Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon announced his retirement from the AI industry, fearing that the race among tech corporations is bringing the world closer to a «point of no return» and could lead to an apocalyptic scenario as early as the end of 2027.
