Sam Altman (pictured), the CEO of OpenAI, creator of the ChatGPT interface, told a US Senate panel on Tuesday that regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) is “crucial” to limit the risks of using of this technology.
Altman, the last figure to emerge from the Silicon Valleyurged Congress to impose new rules on big technology companies, despite deep political divisions that blocked legislation to regulate the Internet.
“We believe that regulatory intervention by governments will be crucial to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful models“estimated the 38-year-old businessman.
“It is critical that the most powerful AI is developed with democratic valueswhich means that the leadership of the United States is decisive,” he said when testifying on the impact of AI before a Senate judiciary subcommittee.
The launch of ChatGPTin November, the interest of the public increased, but also of companies, for the so-called generative AI, that is, that capable of creating content, texts, images, sounds or videos.
Generative AI is stirring up passion and many are concerned about its potential impact on many professions, with possible massive job cutsand fundamentally in society as a whole.
A regulatory framework for artificial intelligence
“OpenAI was founded on the belief that artificial intelligence has the potential to improve nearly every aspect of our lives, but it also creates serious risks,” Altman acknowledged.
“One of my biggest fears is that we, this industry, this technology, will cause a significant harm to society” he said. “If this technology goes the wrong way, it can go quite far. (…) And we want to work with the government to prevent that from happening.”
The businessman recalled that although OpenAI, the entity that developed ChatGPT, is a private company, it is controlled by a non-profit organization, which obliges it to “work for a wide distribution of the benefits of AI and to maximize security of AI-based systems.
Altman has expressed support for establishing a regulatory framework for AI, preferably at the international level. “I know it seems naive to propose something like this, it seems very difficult” to achieve, but “there are precedents,” he said, citing the example of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Altman admitted that AI will probably affect the working market, but he was optimistic that in the long run, technology will create more new jobs than it will destroy. “We are tremendously creative,” confided the businessman.
A guest at the event, IBM’s Director of Privacy and Trust, Christina Montgomerycited his own position as an example of a job that did not exist before the development of AI.
Artificial intelligence and the atomic bomb
Altman was also open to the suggestion that the government develop independent laboratories to test the reliability of artificial intelligence models, and that they would give a similar grade to the nutritional rating of food. The person in charge of OpenAI admitted that its products still make mistakesbut over time they will become more and more reliable.
One of the driving senators of the audience, the Republican Josh Hawleyassured that artificial intelligence is “one of the most significant innovations in history”, but that it is not yet clear if it will be more similar to the invention of the printing press or the atomic bomb.
Congressmen argued that while it is true that public regulation is needed, AI companies like OpenAI do not have to wait for Congress to put in place mechanisms to control the development of the technology to mitigate damage.
At the beginning of the month, the US government announced that it will invest 140 million dollars to establish seven new artificial intelligence research institutes that will drive responsible innovation and ensure that advances in technology serve the common good. The centers will join the 18 AI research institutes already operating in the country.
Besides, the White House announced that major AI companies have agreed to undergo a public evaluation of their systems during the Defcon hacker meeting in Las Vegas in early August.
During the convention, thousands of participants will analyze whether these systems are aligned with the AI Bill of Rights proposed by the US Government, which includes principles such as the privacy of user data or protection against discriminatory algorithms.
