Near Protocol Co-Founder Rejects AGI Research Pause Petition

Illia Polosukhin declines to sign AGI slowdown petition, arguing regulation must target infrastructure security and open-source verification rather than restricting model development.

Woofun AI reports that Near Protocol co-founder Illia Polosukhin declined to sign a joint statement by over 1,000 researchers calling for a pause in advanced AGI development. He argued that halting research fails to address root causes, asserting that digital infrastructure remains unprepared for AGI integration. Polosukhin warned that government regulation could inadvertently restrict free speech and knowledge access while failing to curb corporate competition. Instead, he advocated for open-source, verifiable AI systems, including evaluation frameworks independent of model weights and alignment functions tied to individual interests rather than corporate profits, to mitigate security risks at the system level.