Sam Altman voices fears that control of AI could be centered in too few hands
OpenAI Group PBC Chief Executive Sam Altman is worried that artificial intelligence technology will end up being controlled by just a handful of companies or people in future, resulting in nobody else having any say about how it impacts society.
Speaking in an interview with the podcaster David Senra on Sunday, Altman (pictured) warned against a situation in which most people lose their voice as AI changes the world. “The right approach is for people to deeply control the future,” he said. “Society and the model will evolve together.”
By that, he meant that the direction of AI should be steered by social choices, rather than in the direction that some companies want it to go.
Altman also said he’s worried that AI could one day escape human control, but believes that, paradoxically, the fear of this happening could well enable the first situation to arise. “There are a lot of people who are so nervous about the magnitude of those risks and get so taken by that and feel a need to protect the world,” Altman said. “Like, you know, ‘we should trade off a lot of liberty for safety.’”
