OpenAI's Sam Altman debacle reflects a wider debate over AI safety
Disagreements over responsible artificial intelligence development, most recently over open-source AI, are shaping the fast-growing industry.
During a visit to Sydney in October, artificial intelligence pioneer Andrew Ng told the Australian Financial Review he didn't buy AI as an existential risk. Big Tech, he said, was using the spectre of an AI apocalypse to bring about regulation that would stifle any prospective newcomers to the market.
His comments, and debate over how dangerous AI truly is, became the talk of the industry. Since Ng is the guy who taught OpenAI cofounder Sam Altman at Stanford, his declaration was difficult to ignore.
“I have respect for Andrew,” Altman said during a talk days later at Cambridge University. “But I respectfully disagree."
One of the key issues Ng raised was the idea of open-source AI models, which industry leaders like OpenAI are moving away from – and which legislators in the EU could potentially limit. The dispute over open-source AI reflects a wider skirmish over AI safety, and how genuinely Big Tech is reckoning with it.
