Sam Altmann, OpenAI CEO will appear before Congress for the first time on May 16 to discuss the regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) in the United States during a hearing on oversight. Also testifying will be IBM’s vice president of trust and privacy, Christina Montgomery, and NYU Professor Emeritus, Gary Marcus.
US Senate hearing #AI Oversight, with @OpenAI CEO @samaIBM’s @_ChristinaMont and NYU Emeritus Prof. @garymarcus, Tuesday am 10ET. https://t.co/VwiR77F52f
—Gary Marcus (@GaryMarcus) May 10, 2023
Details about the hearing agenda remain scant. your title, “Oversight of AI: Rules for Artificial Intelligence”)implies that the discussion will focus on security and privacy, as will the list of expected attendees.
It will be the first time that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has testified before Congress, though he recently attended a Roundtable with Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House with the CEOs of Alphabet, Microsoft and Anthropic.
Joining Altman will be IBM’s vice president of trust and privacy, Christina Montgomery, a member of the US National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee, and New York University professor emeritus Gary Marcus, a New York Times bestselling author.
Recently, Marcus caused a sensation in the artificial intelligence community. for his firm support to a six-month “pause” in community-driven AI development.
The idea of a pause in AI was defined in an open letter published on the Future of Life Institute website on March 22. At the time of publishing this article, it has more than 27,500 signatures.
The stated goal of the card is “ask all AI labs to immediately pause training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4 for at least 6 months.”
Sam Altman and Christina Montgomery are among those who oppose the pause.
For his part, Montgomery explained his opinion in an article published on the IBM company blog titled “Don’t pause AI development, prioritize ethics instead”, in which he advocated for a more precise approach to AI regulation:
“A widespread pause in AI training, coupled with existing trends that appear to be de-prioritizing investment in the AI industry’s ethics efforts, will only lead to further damage and setbacks.”
According to another IBM blog post, written in part by Montgomery, the company believes AI should be regulated based on risk – it’s worth noting that, as far as we know, IBM doesn’t currently have any public-facing generative AI models.
OpenAI, for its part, is responsible for ChatGPT, possibly the most popular public AI technology today.
In an interview with Lex Fridman at an MIT event, Altman, the company’s CEO, supports the safe and ethical development of AI systems, but believes that “involve everyone in the debate” and “get these systems out into the world.”
This leaves Marcus as the only exception, as he has been a strong supporter of the pause since its inception. Although Marcus admits that “did not participate in drafting” of the letter, he wrote an article on his blog titled “Is it time to hit the pause button on the AI?” almost a month before the open letter was published.
Although the upcoming Senate hearing is likely to function as little more than a forum for members of Congress to ask questions, the debate could have disturbing ramifications, depending on which experts are believed.
If Congress determines that AI regulation deserves a strong hand, experts like Montgomery fear that such efforts could have a chilling effect on innovation without necessarily addressing security concerns.
This detriment could extend to operational sectors where GPT technology supports a plethora of bots and services. In the world of fintech, for example, cryptocurrency exchanges are adapting chatbot technology to serve its customers, carry out operations and analyze the market.
However, experts like Marcus and Elon Musk worry that if what they consider to be common sense policy related to AI oversight is not enacted, humanity could suffer an existential crisis.
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