Pausing the Development of Artificial Intelligence for Six Months

Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak (Apple’s cofounder), Yuval Noah Harari (bestselling author of Sapiens), and several others have endorsed an open letter calling for “all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.”

The letter argues that “Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources.”

I agree the development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is going to impact our lives considerably. But I don’t think AGI will cause as fundamental or profound a change as the letter or even the proponents of AGI suggest. Expressions like “history of life on Earth“ are nothing more than hyperbole. I would have preferred a more measured phrasing.

I also agree that “AI research and development should be refocused on making today's powerful, state-of-the-art systems more accurate, safe, interpretable, transparent, robust, aligned, trustworthy, and loyal.” However, I don’t think it would be possible to effectively enforce a pause of 6 months without taking extreme measures.

The letter’s insistence that “if such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium” is both naïve and alarming. Governments in many countries across the world already use cyber surveillance to punish political dissent.

Instead of asking for a pause on the development of AGI, I think a better way could be to make the development process as inclusive as possible.

At present, the development of AGI is being done by folks who are predominantly white and male. The worldview of a middle-class, white man working in Silicon Valley is quite different from that of a working-class woman in rural Pakistan or someone growing up in a favela in Brazil. We need to have as many worldviews as possible on the table.

The letter argues that “powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable” (emphasis mine). Unless we make the process of development of AGI inclusive, we will not have a useful understanding of the wide variety of risks it could pose.

This, of course, is my opinion and like many others I am also trying to understand the way things are changing.

I am keeping an open mind and would love to know what you think of the letter.

Academic Research Workflow with R

I have been writing Twitter threads for a year now. During this time, a lot of colleagues have asked me if I could do a few threads on quantitative data analysis and how to use R, the free software for statistical computing.

I am a humanities scholar with a PhD in comparative literature and I don’t know much about R or quantitative analysis. But since my aim has always been to serve the academic community I had been on a lookout for someone with whom I could collaborate to create an R tutorial.

A few days ago when Dr. Ruben Dario Palacio reached out to tell me that he has prepared a complete course that incorporates R, I was quite delighted.

Ruben is a Colombian biologist with a PhD in Conservation Biology from Duke University in the US. His doctoral studies were fully-funded through the prestigious Fulbright-Colciencias grant.

As a recipient of a Fulbright scholarship myself, I can tell you the competition for a grant like this is quite fierce. In fact, the first time I applied for a Fulbright, I couldn’t even make it.

Ruben has published several peer-reviewed articles in top-ranked academic journals like Conservation Biology and Diversity and Distributions. He finished his PhD last year and his work has already been cited more than 300 times. All this to say that Ruben is no slouch when it comes to academic writing and publishing.

Ruben’s Course on Academic Research

Ruben is offering an intensive, four-weeks-long course (from 17 April to 13 May) on how to conduct and publish academic research.

The objective of the course is help you develop a system for reading papers to doing data analysis to publishing your results. You'll have access to templates, frameworks, tools, case studies, and step-by-step guides to help you publish your research in top-ranked academic journals.

Ruben will also provide you personalized feedback and you will the benefit of peer accountability during the course.

Syllabus for the Course

Week 1: Doing a Literature Review

Use Google Scholar to find literature. Create a Zotero literature collection. Use Research Rabbit (and alternatives) to expand it. Add highlights and export to PDF notes to Obsidian. Centralize your notes for scientific insights.

Live Workshop: Q & A on the literature review. Tools, tips, and tricks for Zotero and Obsidian.

Week 2: Conducting Research

Project planning your research. Organize your digital files and folders. How to analyze and visualize your data. Making your workflow reproducible Use a computational notebook. Coding principles and concepts.

Live Workshop: Q & A on doing reproducible research. Participatory live coding for analyzing and visualizing data.

Week 3: Writing a Manuscript

Structure your writing in ten straightforward steps. Employ the writing backwards technique. General guidelines and advice for scientific writing. Use ChatGPT and AI writing tools. Work habits and productivity tips to improve your writing.

Live Workshop: Q & A on scientific writing. Feedback session on student manuscripts.

Week 4: Publishing a Paper

Choosing a journal. Understanding citation metrics. Determining authorship. Preprints. Data papers and repositories. Submitting your article. Writing an editorial cover letter. Responding to reviewer comments. Crafting the supplementary material.

Live Workshop: Q & A on scientific publishing. Peer-review activity between students.

You can register for the course by clicking here.

The fee for the four-weeks-long course is $375. You can use the code “Mushtaq25“ for a $25 discount.

Latin American students from public universities can avail a 50% discount.

Become an Efficient Academic Writer with AI apps

Speaking of writing workflows, registration for my upcoming webinar on how to become an Efficient Academic Writer is open.

It is a 2 hour webinar and will be held on 8 April, 5 pm GMT.

Registration includes a free tutorial (currently priced at $49.99) and access to a video recording.

You can register by clicking here. More than 100 academics have already signed up for the webinar.