Future of Life Institute open letter calls for six-month pause on advanced AI development

The Future of Life Institute publishes an open letter signed by over 1,000 AI researchers and technology leaders — including Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, Yoshua Bengio, and Stuart Russell — calling for a six-month moratorium on training AI systems more powerful than GPT-4. The letter warns of "profound risks to society and humanity" and urges governments to step in if the industry will not. OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft do not sign. The letter catalyzes congressional hearings and accelerates European AI Act negotiations. Sam Altman later testifies before the Senate that the letter raised "legitimate concerns." The pause never occurs.