Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, recently said in an event at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) that the European Union should be proactively regulating artificial intelligence (AI). OpenAI is the company behind the widely-discussed chatbot ChatGPT. Altman also discussed governance regarding AI with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin.
Altman believes that it is important for the EU to get out ahead of AI by formulating regulations proactively. He added that although the current thinking around the EU’s AI Act is alarming, OpenAI will do its best to comply. However, if they can’t, then they may have to shut down operations. He also raised the question of whose values should AI be guided by and is still searching for the answer.
OpenAI was launched in 2015 with the mission of promoting friendly artificial general intelligence. Its early efforts focused on advancing the understanding of reinforcement learning and generative models. In November of 2020, the company released its most popular tool, identifying itself as the creator behind ChatGPT. The chatbot is an AI software that can answer a range of questions or even write entire essays, and is available to anyone for free.
The company is co-chaired by world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking and technology investor Elon Musk. Sam Altman is currently at the helm as OpenAI’s chief executive and managing director. He has a long and diverse career in the tech industry, having been the CEO of Y Combinator, a well-known tech accelerator. Altman has also had roles at several tech start-ups and venture capital companies, as well as a professor at Stanford.
