Alexis Ohanian, a co-founder of Reddit, recently spoke to CNN’s Chris Wallace in an interview about Artificial Intelligence (AI). During the interview, Wallace asked whether the US government was equipped to regulate AI and Ohanian’s answer was a concrete no as he believes politicians in office have a responsibility to first understand the technology before they can decide on its regulation. He added that the White House is taking steps as they recently invited tech leaders to the White House to discuss AI safety. His views are shared by prominent figures in technology such as Elon Musk, who think AI should be put on pause until regulators have caught up.
Ohanian’s stance on AI’s regulation goes in line with one of Reddit’s initiatives since 2018 when it started to charge companies that use its data to train their AI models. Such models were created by the likes of OpenAI, Google and Microsoft to provide services such as ChatGPT.
With a career spanning over 12 years, Ohanian is no stranger to the tech world. He was a part of the original three-person team that launched Reddit back in 2005, alongside Steve Huffman and Aaron Swartz. From then until 2019 he was the Executive Chairman at Reddit, when he transitioned to become a full-time venture capitalist. In addition to his role with Reddit, Ohanian also co-founded the venture capital firm Initialized Capital and is an active investor/adviser in startups like PillPack, Instacart, and Capital Factory.
In 2018, Ohanian voiced his thoughts on AI replacing people in certain jobs saying that it will not be possible for robots to do the same kind of work his older sister does as a nurse. His comment was a reminder that aside from the very real fear of AI, one should also consider how its development and use could benefit us in terms of economic and social progress.
