Absolute feeling of restlessness and perplexity in the Capitol. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI (ChatGPT) appeared yesterday as a witness before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee to talk about artificial intelligence, its dangers and the regulatory framework that should be applied. His main idea is that the United States government should create a specific agency that, after examining each AI, will grant it a license based on the degree of capabilities it has.
“As this technology advances, we understand that people are concerned about how it could change the way we live. We are too,” admitted Altman, who asked the United States authorities “to work together to identify and manage the possible disadvantages, so that we can all enjoy the enormous advantages.”
Altman was quoted in the Senate along with Christina Montgomery, IBM’s director of privacy and trust, who also called for a specific agency to regulate AI; and Gary Marcus, a leading professor of psychology and neural science at New York University who has founded artificial intelligence companies and has been highly critical of the dangers this technology can cause.
Asked by one of the senators what worries him most about the deployment of artificial intelligence, Altman said: “My worst fears are that we, the technology industry, will cause significant damage to the world.” “If this technology goes wrong, it can go very wrong,†he admitted.
One of the aspects that causes “greatest concern” is the manipulation of images and voice. “These kinds of skills,” she admitted, “make me nervous.” In Altman’s view, the solution “is going to require a combination of companies doing the right thing, regulation and public education.” The GPT-4 language model was tested six months before it was released. There are no plans to release GPT-5 in the next half year.
But the most alarming argument before the Senate committee was made by Gary Marcus, who assured the senators that “these new systems are going to be destabilizing.” “They can and will create persuasive lies on a scale never seen by humanity. Democracy itself is threatened,†he stated.
This expert predicted that “chatbots will also clandestinely shape our opinions, potentially surpassing what social networks can do” and warned about the power that AI companies will have: “Those who choose the data will dictate the rules that will shape society in a subtle but powerful.
The session, led by the chairman of the committee, Senator Richard Blumenthal, began with a recording of his voice, although at the end, the parliamentarian explained that the record had been created by artificial intelligence. “What if he had called for and backed the surrender of Ukraine or Vladimir Putin’s leadership?†he wondered. “The prospect is scary.”
