Altman Calls for AI Danger Agency: The Tactic to Cover Up

Last March, the US Congress questioned the CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, about its ties to China and the safety of Western users. It’s a well-tested script: a big name from Big Tech flies to Washington where he is criticized for a few hours by Republicans and Democrats, who take advantage of the moment to earn a clip to share on social media to demonstrate that they have been “hard” with the tech giants . It matters little that the questions are questionable to say the least: years ago a senator asked Mark Zuckerberg how Facebook managed to make money, if it was free; A few weeks ago, someone asked Chew if TikTok was able to “connect to home Wi-Fi”. Last Tuesday the little theater was repeated with Sam Altman, head of OpenAI as the protagonist, the company that developed the generative artificial intelligences that have dominated the technological and political debate for months. AIs are a different business than social networks: they don’t directly play with our data and they haven’t (yet) been accused of influencing general elections. Altman also anticipated a card that no Zuckerberg would have ever used: “Please, politicians, regulate my sector in some way”, the entrepreneur essentially asked, admitting the complexities and risks associated with the indiscriminate development of these technologies . The reversal of roles also occurred because Altman seems to hope for government intervention in the management and regulation of AI, rewarding the idea of ​​a special agency capable of giving a license to the most powerful AI systems arriving to “remove” it from individuals who do not comply with safety standards.