The Manhattan Project Theory of Generative AI is a term used to compare this rapidly advancing technology to the development of the atomic bomb. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard AI Chatbot have taken the world by storm, each releasing within a month and already having over 100 million users in just two months. Generative AI is impacting almost every sector, from school, law, gaming, search, and more. Recently, the birth of generative AI has been compared to the Manhattan Project. This comparison comes from both critics and advocates, seeing the potential of this technology and the implications it could have for society.
The CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, views the Manhattan Project as the level of ambition they must aspire to, while the Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, and Aza Raskin, warn that AI could destroy civilization as we know it. Altman recognizes the potential danger AI poses, but believes that given the unstoppable march of technology, he can put up guardrails to make sure it develops carefully.
The existing guardrails are proving to be largely ineffective against AI generated hate speech or other criminal advice, yet digital watermarks can help detect deepfakes like the Pope images. Organizations like the Content Authenticity Initiative have put such protocols in place. Unfortunately, OpenAI and MidJourney – companies developing generative AI – have not joined those efforts.
OpenAI is a technology research lab located in San Francisco, California that is dedicated to discovering and enacting the path to safe artificial general intelligence. Their mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI), a term for a system that can automatically execute broad categories of tasks, benefits humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a limited set of predetermined tasks. Founded by Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, OpenAI has already created software tools to create jobs and improve lives.
Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI, the technology research lab located in San Francisco, California. He has been the driving force behind technological advances in OpenAI, and aims to ensure that the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits humanity in the long run. A former Y Combinator president, he has placed an emphasis on developing a safe ecosystem for these technologies and helping those displaced by the advance of automation. Sam is also the co-chair of the Open Philanthropy Fund, a nonprofit that provides grants to organizations that are promoting social good.
