Gates, Musk, and Biden weigh in on the AI race debate
Artificial intelligence has been a hot topic as of late. Some tech leaders are advocating for a pause in AI developments for the well-being of society, while others are actively working on further advancements. Now, more leaders are weighing in.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and an investor in OpenAI when the company was first founded, has made his position against further AI advancements clear.
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Musk was one of the first signers of an open letter, which has now garnered over 13,547 signatures including that of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, to immediately pause the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4 for at least 6 months.
Since the open letter, Musk has continued to speak on the issue of AI safety, posting on Twitter a cartoon that depicts what he believes to be the danger of not halting AI advancements.
Summary of argument against AI safety pic.twitter.com/Vmg4yJm22Y
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 4, 2023
However, Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder, spoke out about the issue, telling Reuters that a pause on AI would likely not solve the issues that AI is facing.
"I don't think asking one particular group to pause solves the challenges," Gates said to Reuters.
Gates acknowledged there are some "tricky areas" and the most immediate call to action should be identifying them.
"Clearly there's huge benefits to these things… what we need to do is identify the tricky areas," said Gates.
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Microsoft is currently dominating the AI space because of its massive, multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment in OpenAI, the AI research company behind ChatGPT.
Through its partnership, Microsoft has been able to leverage OpenAI's latest technology for its own endeavors including Bing Chat and Bing Image Creator.
Elon Musk has openly expressed his concerns with Microsoft's investments and the distancing from its open-source, non-profit origins, as seen by the tweet below.
I’m sure it will be fine pic.twitter.com/JWsq62Qkru
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2023
As the AI race continues to ramp up, and the debate on whether it is dangerous or not persists, US President Joe Biden shared his thoughts on AI with the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
When asked by the press if AI could be dangerous, Biden said, "It remains to be seen. It could be."
However, during his address, he did mention that the White House is working to put in place the necessary provisions, such as the AI Bill of Rights, to ensure that AI is safe for the public.
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"And so, tech companies have a responsibility, in my view, to make sure their products are safe before making them public," said Biden.
The future of AI in the US remains to be seen as the debate continues.
Other countries, such as Italy, have taken action against AI technology, specifically ChatGPT, banning it entirely from the country due to data breach and security concerns.