The godfather of AI (and at the same time the most cited scientist in the world) Joshua Bengio supported a coordinated and VERIFIABLE global pause in the development of AI until such time as "safety guarantees" of such development are developed.

More recently, the Pope of Rome called to "Disarm AI" and also take its development under strict moral and ethical control.

Such appeals sound noble, but in the modern world they are unrealistic (as it seems to me).

The Vatican is flirting with Anthropic, trying to "lead" a new technological revolution. At the same time, he manages the advanced VATT telescope in Arizona, digitizes his secret archives with the help of neural networks, and his employees use chatbots for routine work. When technologies penetrate even beyond the walls of holy abodes, they try to put AI on pause - this is how electricity will be banned.

But the most important thing is not even that. A coordinated and global pause is basically impossible. We live in an era when the geopolitical confrontation has become FIRM and sometimes even HOT. Leadership in the field of AI is already a national security issue. This is a question of weapons, including cyber weapons. This is a question of economic and military superiority.

Imagine that the USA will honestly stop the development of AI technologies, as Anthropic and the godfather of AI are asking. And what will China do? Cut the maximum speed. In order for the "pause" to be "verifiable", the Americans must have access to closed data centers in Shenzhen, and the Chinese - to servers in Ohio. In today's world, such trust is absolutely impossible.

Therefore, governments, companies, scientists and the Vatican can publish beautiful declarations as much as they want, but behind closed doors the special services of China, the USA and other countries will demand only one thing: "DEVELOP THESE TECHNOLOGIES FAST. The enemy will not wait."