Everyone accepts that AI is dangerous. Agreeing about what to do about it – as the EU has started to do – is a different story
Tue 13 Jun 2023 11.00 BST Johana Bhuiyan and Nick Robins-Early
ast month, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI and face of the artificial intelligence boom, sat in front of members of Congress urging them to regulate artificial intelligence (AI). As lawmakers on the Senate judiciary subcommittee asked the 38-year-old tech mogul about the nature of his business, Altman argued that the AI industry could be dangerous and that the government needs to step in.
“I think if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong,” Altman said. “We want to be vocal about that.”
How governments should regulate artificial intelligence is a topic of increasing urgency in countries around the world, as advancements reach the general public and threaten to upend entire industries.
The European Union has been working on regulation around the issue for a while. But in the US, the regulatory process is just getting started. American lawmakers’ initial moves, several digital rights experts said, did not inspire much confidence. Many of the senators appeared to accept the AI industry’s ambitious predictions as fact and trust its leaders to act in good faith. “This is your chance, folks, to tell us how to get this right,” Senator John Kennedy said. “Talk in plain English and tell us what rules to implement.”
And much of the discussion about artificial intelligence has revolved around futuristic concerns about the technology becoming sentient and turning against humanity, rather than the impact AI is already having: increasing surveillance, intensifying discrimination, weakening labor rights and creating mass misinformation… Read full article
