It is one of the hottest debates today – how to deal with the risks of artificial intelligence? The Bloomberg Technology Summit, held in San Francisco (USA), highlights this discussion. They believe that this technology, which is advancing by leaps and bounds, should be closely monitored.
Cost benefit
There are areas where artificial intelligence (AI) can be beneficial. But many others could “go wrong,” acknowledged Sam Altman. He is CEO and co-founder of OpenAI Inc.
“We work with dangerous technology. It could be used dangerously very often,” Altman said at the recent summit. His company, OpenAI, has been valued at more than $27 billion. He said the “benefits outweigh the costs.” In areas such as science, education and medicine, there are great opportunities. “I think it would be good to end poverty, but we will have to manage risk to get there.”
Sam Altman praised the enormous success of OpenAI’s products, such as the chatbot ChatGPT and the Dall-E image generator. He says his concern about AI is “not about money.” Says building so-called “guardrails” for AI use is one of the “most important” steps.
He weighed in on Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s recent warnings about the harmful potential of AI. Musk is co-founder of OpenAI with Altman. “He’s very concerned about the safety of AI,” the tech guru stressed. Hundreds of researchers earlier issued a warning that AI poses an existential threat to humanity.
Alerts
“Mitigating the risk of human extinction from AI should be a global priority.” So warns the statement issued on May 30. Another public letter issued in March gathered the signatures of more than 1,000 academics, entrepreneurs and specialists. They urged a pause in AI development until it can be regulated and managed responsibly. It seems that the risks of artificial intelligence are not yet fully calculated. But we must be vigilant: we don’t want the Terminator’s Skynet to become a reality.
