By Michael Scott
The United States Senate will hold a hearing entitled ‘Oversights of AI: Rules for Artificial Intelligence. Artificial intelligence (AI) professionals from NYU, IBM, and Open AI are expected to attend the hearing.
OpenAI CEO Set for Congress Hearing Regarding AI
Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive officer, will appear before Congress on May 16 to deliberate on regulating artificial intelligence in the nation. Other persons to appear include Christina Montgomery, IBM’S chief trust and privacy officer, and Professor Gary Marcus, a New York University emeritus professor. Information concerning the hearing’s agenda is scanty.
The title indicates the discussion will focus on the elements of privacy and safety. Despite participating in a crucial discussion with Vice President Kamala at the White House, this hearing will be a major testimony for Sam Altman. Others in attendance included the chief executive officers of Microsoft, Alphabet, and Anthropic.
AI Pause Garners Support Among Tech Scholars
Lately, New York University’s Marcus created waves in the artificial intelligence community by significantly supporting the community-enhanced pause on the technology’s development for half a year.
A March 22 open letter on the Future of Life Website defined the need for an AI pause. So far, 27500 persons have approved the article, whose major objective is to compel artificial intelligence labs to instantly pause the training of AI systems more robust than GPT-4 for at least half a year.
Altman Urges Stakeholders to Prioritize Ethical AI Development over Pause
Several persons are against this move, including Sam Altman and Montgomery. Via a blog entitled ‘Don’t pause AI development, prioritize ethics instead,’ Montgomery expressed her opinions. Specifically, she focused on a more detailed approach to the regulation of artificial intelligence by showing that pausing training and trends that appear to avert investment in the technology will cause more setbacks and harm.
Further, Montgomery created another blog post claiming that IBM believes in regulating AI based on risk. It is critical to note that, at present, IBM lacks public-facing generative artificial intelligence models.
OpenAI is behind ChatGPT and is currently the most popular AI technology. According to an interview with Lex Fridman, Sam Altman believes that the creation of AI systems should be ethical and embrace safety. He also advocates for including all stakeholders in the discussion and openness in the systems.
Pausing to Reevaluate Consequences and Prioritizing Safety Necessary for AI’s Future
Ultimately, Marcus, who has always advocated for the pause, remains the only outlier. Despite not having a hand in the draft letter, he created a blog post almost a month before publishing the open letter. The blog post is titled ‘Is it time to hit the pause button on AI?’
The forthcoming Senate hearing might serve as a platform for members of Congress to ask questions. However, based on the experts believe it might have some significant consequences. In case the regulation of AI warrants a heavy hand, there might be an alarming impact on innovation without essentially handling safety matters.
Besides, the harm may impact operating sectors where GPT technology supports several services and bots. For instance, in the fintech domain, chatbot technology is gaining traction in cryptocurrency exchanges and is currently playing a crucial role in conducting trades, market analysis, and serving clients.
Nevertheless, some experts, for instance, Elon Musk and Marcus, are concerned that failure to implement common-sense policy associated with artificial intelligence oversight can lead to a major crisis for humankind.
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