Sam Altman calls for acceleration while Vitaly Buterin urges ‘soft pause’ on AI superintelligence

Some of AI’s prominent leaders have gone head-to-head this week, presenting opposing ideas about the future of artificial intelligence. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin have both discussed the rapid advancements in the technology, with the former advocating for the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI), while the latter has called for a “soft pause.” Buterin has also suggested that crypto technologies could even be used in defensive acceleration.

Altman believes superintelligence is around the corner

In a blog post published on Sunday (Jan. 5), Altman deliberated on the progress of the company, stating: “We are now confident we know how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it. We believe that, in 2025, we may see the first AI agents ‘join the workforce’ and materially change the output of companies.”

reflections: https://t.co/rHdE40AuOG

— Sam Altman (@sama) January 6, 2025

The entrepreneur added that OpenAI is moving beyond AI agents and AGI, revealing that the company has started working on what he described as “superintelligence in the true sense of the word.”

In September, ReadWrite reported that Altman predicted superintelligent AI will arrive within a few thousand days, however, Buterin appears to be weary about the possible lack of safeguards.

Buterin calls for a global ‘soft pause’ as Altman seeks next AI iteration

On Buterin’s own blog, published hours earlier, he called for a global “soft pause” button on industrial-scale hardware. In terms of superintelligence, Buterin cautioned: “[If] we get warning signs that near-superintelligent AI is starting to do things that risk catastrophic damage, we will want to take the transition more slowly.”

What is d/acc?

In 2023, the blockchain co-founder introduced a philosophical approach to technology, termed ‘d/acc’ or Defensive (Decentralization, or Differential) Acceleration, which advocates for a deliberate and balanced path in technological development. He identified connections between early crypto adopters and AI users.

d/acc: one year laterhttps://t.co/pM3eVtJ1BU

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 5, 2025

In his most recent article, Buterin writes that AI hardware that gets produced “could be equipped with a trusted hardware chip that only allows it to continue running if it gets 3/3 signatures once a week from major international bodies, including at least one non-military-affiliated.” Under his proposal, this would require major AI systems to obtain weekly approval from three international groups to continue operating.

The signatures would work across all devices, meaning all devices must be approved together. There would be no way to authorize one device to continue operating without approving them all. He added: “Until such a critical moment happens, merely having the capability to soft-pause would cause little harm to developers.”

This comes as Altman revealed that OpenAI’s weekly active users grew from about 100 million to more than 300 million since 2022, highlighting the rapid progress of the technology. In response, Buterin has called for a year of “wartime mode” to “limit everyone on an equal footing, and do the hard work of actually trying to cooperate to organize that instead of one party seeking to dominate everyone else.”

That said, Buterin discovered that many crypto technologies can support d/acc areas, like using blockchains for stronger financial systems, governance, and social media. He said that zero-knowledge proofs can protect privacy, and blockchain-based prediction markets are becoming more advanced, decentralized, and fair.

Featured image: John Phillips for TechCrunch / TechCrunch / Canva

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