OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has reacted to Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk, and other tech leaders’ call for a pause in the ‘out of control’ Artificial Intelligence (AI) race.
Altman who spoke virtually at an MIT event disclosed that he agreed with part of the letter, while also noting that the letter wasn’t the right way to go about it.
He said,
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“I think moving with caution and an increasing rigor for safety issues is really important. The letter I don’t think was the optimal way to address it. I also agree as capabilities get more and more serious, that the safety bar has got to increase. We are doing other things on top of GPT-4 that I think have all sorts of safety issues that are important to address and were totally left out of the letter”.
Altman’s disagreement with Musk and other tech leaders’ call for a pause on AI is coming after some of the biggest names in the tech industry are calling for AI labs to stop the training of the most powerful AI tools, for at least six months, citing profound risk to society and humanity.
The letter was written just two weeks after Altman OpenAI announced GPT-4, an even more powerful version of the technology that underpins the viral AI chatbot tool, ChatGPT. The letter stated that the pause should apply to AI systems more powerful than GPT-4, also stating that independent experts should use the proposed pause to jointly develop and implement a set of shared protocols for AI tools that are safe beyond a reasonable doubt. These tech leaders disclosed that if the pause is not put in place soon, governments should step in and create a moratorium.
Altman who is the CEO behind the company that created the buzzing chatbot ChatGPT believes artificial intelligence (AI) technology will reshape society, however, he believes it comes with real dangers, but can also be the greatest technology humanity has yet developed to drastically improve human lives.
In an interview last month with ABC News, he was emphatic that OpenAI needs both regulators and society to be as involved as possible with the rollout of ChatGPT 4, insisting that feedback will help deter the potential negative consequences the technology could have on humanity. He added that he is in regular contact with government officials.
He however expressed concerns that these models could be used for large-scale disinformation, due to the fact that they are now getting better at writing computer code, which he feels could be used for offensive cyberattacks.
Other Artificial intelligence experts have also become increasingly concerned about AI tools’ potential for biased responses, the ability to spread misinformation and the impact on consumer privacy. These tools have also sparked concerns about how AI can pose a serious risk to professions, enabling students to cheat, leading to massive job loss, and the likes.
Despite buzz to the contrary, OpenAI is not already working on a successor to Chat GPT-4, CEO Sam Altman says. A March letter signed by Elon Musk and a group of artificial intelligence researchers called for a halt in the development of large language models “more powerful than GPT-4” until safety protocols are in place. However, OpenAI is not training GPT-5 and “won’t for some time,” Altman said at a conference. He said his firm is keen to address concerns about AI, but that the letter was vague “about where we need the pause.” (LinkedIn News)