So every company should cease all AI development for an indefinite period of time until someone has done the research and deemed it safe. And who exactly will that someone be? Future of Life Institute (whoever they are)? Elon Musk, who has very conveniently signed the letter after his public beef with OpenAI? Your friendly local government that has no agenda whatsoever? The UN?

Efforts like these are at best naive, and at worst agenda driven by players who simply want to insert themselves into and control the conversation.