OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has released his response to a letter from Twitter CEO Elon Musk and other prominent tech leaders who called for a halt on artificial intelligence research for six months. At an event at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Altman stated his agreement with parts of the letter, but noted that it needed to be more tailored to include specifics about the areas of research of AI that need to be paused.
Altman argued that it was important to move cautiously and with increasing sense of safety when it comes to AI research. He further pointed out that OpenAI took over six months to release the GPT-4 model after its training was completed, to understand the safety of the model and mitigate any risk associated with it.
Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak and over a 1000 other people had signed the open letter that was issued by the nonprofit Future of Life Institute. The letter called for labs to pause the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4 and asked independent experts to create, execute, and evaluate safety protocols.
However, Microsoft Corporation co-founder Bill Gates and Google CEO Sundar Pichai argued that this pause was unenforceable without the collaboration of the government. Furthermore, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman commented on the issue saying that Musk’s signature was a sign of jealousy and he wanted a hiatus so he could catch up with his own AI products.
Altman further said that OpenAI would continue to be transparent about its AI development and encouraged the public to participate in testing and knowledge building with regards to advances in AI. He stated that it is essential that these systems are made available to the public so that they can understand the advantages and disadvantages of their use and use it accordingly.
OpenAI is a non-profit technology company that was founded in 2015 by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and other technology leaders. The company focuses on Artificial Intelligence and its researchers develop advanced applications and tools for the development of AI systems for many industries. OpenAI’s mission is to ensure that AI is beneficial for society as a whole and accessible to everyone.
Sam Altman is an American entrepreneur, investor, programmer, and writer. He is the president of Y Combinator and the former CEO of OpenAI, a non-profit dedicated to researching and developing artificial intelligence applications. He has become one of the most influential people in the world when it comes to technology, specifically Artificial Intelligence. In 2020, Altman was named the second most influential investor in the world by Uber.