[Image of Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI]
Management Change: Altman returns as CEO, Brockman as president, highlighting joint leadership. | Image: Sam Altman
AI and policy: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is likely to meet with US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday, reports suggest.
The top boss of Microsoft-backed generative technology startup will meet the Republican leader on Capitol Hill, according to sources cited by Axiom.
Neither the office of the US House Speaker, nor OpenAI have commented on the matter.
OpenAI took the world by storm after opening access to ChatGPT in 2022, which writes anything from codes to letters. Founded as an open-source nonprofit, the company was pivoted to a capped-profit structure in 2019.
Altman in November had given Microsoft a non-voting, observer position on the company’s board. Notably, he was ousted from the company after which there were reports of Altman joining Microsoft to build an AI product for the company. Altman was later reinstated.
OpenAI had ousted Altman on Nov. 17 without any detailed cause, placing Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati on the helm. The move had set off alarm bells among investors and employees.
Altman was reinstated after four days, promising the instatement of a new board after his second stint. Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple was also removed from his company in 1985 before being called back, due to a power struggle with the company’s board of directors.
The rise of artificial intelligence has unleashed the potential of generative technologies and artificial intelligence, but also led to job cuts and fears of superintelligence replacing human intellect.
A host of concerns, including the fear that AI could be used to disrupt the democratic process, turbocharge fraud, or lead to dramatic job loss, is among the other harms anticipated.
OpenAI and Microsoft’s foray also led to Google launching its own version of GenAI, called Bard. The company has also introduced Gemini, a multimodal large language model developed by Google DeepMind, which succeeds previous models LaMDA (for Bard) and PaLM 2.
Europe has drafted AI rules and is ahead of the United States on AI regulations.
Democratic US President Joe Biden’s administration has been compelling lawmakers for AI regulation, which has made little headway because of a polarised US Congress.
Notably, Republicans control the House and Democrats have a Senate majority in the house, which has made the passing of effective regulation harder.
(With Reuters Inputs)
I believe that the intersection of AI and policy is a crucial issue that needs to be carefully navigated. With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence technology, there are both significant opportunities and potential risks to consider. It’s important for companies like OpenAI and Microsoft, as well as lawmakers and regulators, to work together to ensure that AI is developed and used in a responsible and ethical manner. Regulation and oversight are necessary to address concerns about job displacement, superintelligence, and the potential for AI to disrupt democratic processes. Collaboration and dialogue between industry leaders and government officials will be key in shaping the future of AI and its impact on society.