OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is set to testify before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Tuesday after the viral success of ChatGPT, his company’s chatbot tool, renewed an arms race over artificial intelligence. The hearing is part of a larger effort to address the risks posed by the technology and has sparked concerns from some lawmakers. Altman has come to serve as a face for a new crop of AI products that can generate images and texts in response to user prompts.
He and his company have pledged to move forward responsibly, and others have signed letters calling for artificial intelligence labs to stop the training of the most powerful AI systems for at least six months. OpenAI CEO Altman has emerged as a powerful voice in the growing debate about AI capabilities and regulation. He is currently in the midst of a month-long, international goodwill tour to talk to policymakers about the technology.
Earlier this month, he was among a group of CEOs convened at the White House about AI regulation. In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Altman called for legislators to regulate quickly growing technology. He said that rules should be imposed on artificial intelligence "above a crucial threshold of capabilities" and that companies should be subject to a “combination of licensing or registration requirements” for releasing advanced models.
Altman was joined by IBM Chief Privacy and Trust Officer Christina Montgomery and New York University professor Gary Marcus during his testimony. Altmann met with lawmakers on Monday night preceding his appearance before Congress members at bipartisan dinner discussions centered around policy matters related with Artificial Intelligence advancements..
In light of recent developments involving ChatGPT's popularity, Bay Area tech executives are being urged not use 'GPT' within their names; instead considering alternatives such as Bay Area No 1 for AI jobs titles.This comes amid calls for establishing guard rails within rapidly evolving realmof Artificial Intelligence., which led to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman being called upon to testify before the Senate.
During his testimony, Altman suggested that companies working on powerful artificial intelligence systems should be required to obtain government licenses. He proposed a combination of licensing and testing requirements for development and release of AI models above a certain threshold of capabilities.
Nevertheless, there is still little consensus on what broad regulations would look like, as Congress and federal agencies struggle to determine their role in overseeing this technology. On the eve of his testimony, Altman gave a presentation to around 60 lawmakers, impressing many with his insights into the future trajectory of AI developments; reiterating that he believes governments have an important part to play in regulating the technology's application responsibly.