Rogue incidents amplified calls to slow AI development, but the industry and governments are divided on tapping the brakes as well as regulating the sector. (Envato Element pic)PARIS: More than 200 artificial intelligence and cybersecurity researchers called Tuesday for immediate action to prevent further cases of AI models going rogue and posing a risk to critical infrastructure.

The letter signed by luminaries in the field, including Nobel Prize winner Geoffrey Hinton and Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio – both seen as godfathers of AI – called for models relating to cybersecurity to be physically cut off from the internet during testing.

"We, the undersigned scientists, contend that both more AI safety research and more emphasis on containment technologies and procedures are needed," said the researchers in the letter.