OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: If This Technology Goes Wrong It Could Go Quite Wrong
During a Senate committee hearing, Altman expressed that his greatest fear is that AI could cause significant harm to the world and that he is open to working with regulators to mitigate that risk.
Sam Altman, the CEO behind one of the fastest-growing artificial intelligence (AI) companies in the world, OpenAI, recently stated before the U.S. Congress that one of his biggest fears for the technology is that it could “cause significant harm to the world.”
He expressed that “if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong,” and stated that he and his company are willing to work with the government to prevent that from happening, adding that “we try to be very clear-eyed about what the downside case is and the work we have to do to mitigate that.”
“I think if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong.”
Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT parent company OpenAI, shared his biggest fears about artificial intelligence before Congress Tuesday.https://t.co/ao01hIx3DS pic.twitter.com/L1ZOk3Y6op
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 16, 2023
Regarding political manipulation, Senator Josh Hawley asked if systems like ChatGPT might be used to say public opinion and impact undecided voters, something Altman expressed he’s nervous about.
The CEO drew comparisons to the early days of Photoshop and how a large majority of the public was fooled by images created using the software until they became more educated about image manipulation. He stated that “This will be like that on steroids.”
Examples of this have already emerged, with AI-generated deepfakes of Donald Trump being arrested, trendy images of the Pope, and the production of nonexistent natural disasters, using programs like Midjourney.
While AI has certainly produced a large number of opportunities in the short term, like a variety of creator tools from Google, and the ability to save professionals time — many like Sen. Hawley fear a long-term downside to the technology.
The Senator listed off various consequences, including “loss of jobs, loss of privacy, manipulation of personal behavior, manipulation of personal opinion, and destabilization of elections in America.”
Others have shared these concerns, including Dr. Geoffery Hinton aka The Godfather of AI, who said “It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things,” and that the current state of the AI industry has a part of him regretting his life work.
Writers in Hollywood have also recently protested the encroachment of AI into their workplace. United under the Writers Guild of America, the group has gone on strike and requested increased regulation of the emerging technology.
However, during the hearing, Altman shared that “we’re very optimistic that there will be fantastic jobs in the future and that current jobs can be much better,” expressing that ChatGPT is “good at doing tasks, not jobs.”
With regulation still being in the air and the White House scrambling to produce groundwork like its proposed AI Bill of Rights, many have called for a pause of large experimentation with the tech, something Senator Cory Booker said isn’t possible — expressing “there’s no way to stop this moving forward, there will be no pause.”
As AI products and integrations expand across nearly every industry, the tech is notably here to stay, with the only reasonable next steps for companies and governmental agencies alike being the implementation of guidelines and regulations to safeguard consumer data and financial security.
In other news, Tom Hanks says he could theoretically act forever thanks to AI.
