Prince Harry calls AI the ‘ultimate sycophant,’ urging swift slowdown to protect children

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Prince Harry has joined calls for an urgent slowdown in the development of AI , warning “if we cannot demonstrate that the next frontier is safe enough to cross, we should not race across it simply because we can.”

The Duke of Sussex made the comments in his second appearance at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) meeting in New York, and come amid rising alarm over AI after a worker at leading company Anthropic put the chance of AI-powered human extinction within 10 years at greater than 10%.

Harry’s speech focused in particular on the risks to children, with the duke warning that chatbots aim to “find you, hook you, exploit you, break and then blame you.”

While praising advances made globally to restrict children’s access to social media, as well as hold tech giants accountable, Harry warned, “Technology is moving on. Fast.”

He pointed to a lawsuit which alleged that AI chatbots have contributed to the deaths of teenagers “who trusted them with things no child should have been left alone to ask an algorithm.”

AI chatbots, he said, aim to be a user’s confidant and are the “ultimate sycophant.”

“Social media learned how to capture our attention. AI is learning how to enter our relationships,” Harry said, adding that companies choose to distance themselves from the responsibility of the systems that they built and instead blame parents and children.

He called for a slowdown of the development of AI, as well as prioritizing innovation that centers around trust and safety.

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Will AI really kill everyone? How, exactly?

Harry is known for high-profile campaigns speaking about the harmful impact of technology on young people. His 2024 speech at the CGI focused on the dangers of social media and targeted the heads of “dangerously powerful” social media conglomerates.

His appearance in New York comes less than a month after he returned to the UK alongside his his wife, Meghan Markle, and their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.

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哈里王子也加入了呼吁紧急放缓人工智能发展的行列，他警告说：“如果我们不能证明下一个前沿领域足够安全，我们就不应该仅仅因为我们有能力就贸然跨越它。”

苏塞克斯公爵在第二次出席纽约克林顿全球倡议（CGI）会议时发表了上述言论。此前，领先公司 Anthropic 的一名员工表示，人工智能在 10 年内导致人类灭绝的可能性超过 10%，这引发了人们对人工智能日益增长的担忧。

哈里的演讲尤其关注儿童面临的风险，这位公爵警告说，聊天机器人的目的是“找到你，吸引你，利用你，破坏你，然后责怪你”。

哈里王子在赞扬全球在限制儿童使用社交媒体以及追究科技巨头责任方面取得的进展的同时，也警告说：“科技发展日新月异。”

他指出，有一项诉讼指控人工智能聊天机器人导致了青少年的死亡，“这些青少年信任它们，问了一些任何孩子都不应该独自向算法提出的问题”。

他说，人工智能聊天机器人的目标是成为用户的知己，是“终极马屁精”。

哈里说：“社交媒体学会了如何吸引我们的注意力。人工智能正在学习如何介入我们的人际关系。”他还补充说，一些公司选择撇清自己所构建的系统的责任，反而指责父母和孩子。

他呼吁放缓人工智能的发展速度，并优先发展以信任和安全为中心的创新。

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人工智能真的会毁灭所有人吗？具体会如何毁灭？

哈里王子因积极参与高调的活动，公开谈论科技对年轻人的有害影响而闻名。他在2024年于CGI发表的演讲重点关注社交媒体的危险性，并矛头直指那些“权力巨大、危险至极”的社交媒体巨头的负责人。

他现身纽约距离他与妻子梅根·马克尔以及他们的孩子阿奇王子和莉莉贝特公主一起返回英国还不到一个月。