OpenAI CEO and co-founder Sam Altman 'has agreed' with the US Congress that AI needs to be heavily regulated to protect the privacy and security of its users.
Altman testified before the members of the Senate on Tuesday, answering a slew of questions on the powerful artificial intelligence technology that is being adopted by companies like Google, Microsoft, and many others.
At one point, OpenAI CEO voiced his fears of AI becoming 'harmful' to the world if left unregulated.
"My worst fears are that the [AI] technology can cause significant harm to the world. I think it can happen in a lot of different ways, it's why we started the company. If this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong and we want to be vocal about that. We want to work with the government to prevent that from happening," said Altman during the hearing.
He emphasized that "[we] need rules, guidelines about what’s expected in terms of disclosure from a company providing a model" that has AI capabilities.
When asked about AI taking away jobs, Altman replied that it would create new ones that "will be much better."
Interestingly, the hearing opened with a deep fake of Senator Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut, along with an AI-generated audio recording reading a speech generated by ChatGPT.
Testifying alongside Altman were IBM’s Christina Montgomery, chair of the company’s AI ethics board, and Gary Marcus, an AI expert and an Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at New York University.
Calling the Tuesday hearing "historic", Marcus warned about the unknown risks of AI, such as the unreliability of current systems and bias.
Rising fears about the unrestrained power of AI have led a group of AI experts and industry leaders, including Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, to sign an open letter to "put a pause" on AI experiments.
