What Haunts OpenAI CEO Sam Altman? His Deepest Fears About AI
During a recent event, Sam Altman provided his distinctive viewpoint on a question that has intrigued many for days.
The CEO of OpenAI, who had a rather turbulent year, recently opened up about his deepest fears. And, this has nothing to do with the boardroom drama that unfolded last month. Sam Altman recently attended the Hope Global Forums 2023. The young CEO was a guest speaker at the event that witnessed the participation of an array of luminaries from diverse backgrounds.
During the session ‘The Future of AI’, Altman was asked about what kept him up at night. The 37-year-old went on to describe the sci-fi stories that he watched or read while growing up. According to him, these were “really compelling stories” such as the mind virus that got in his brain, or AI’s going rogue. Describing these thoughts, Altman said that there was “something about them that really resonates with us.”
“When OpenAI first started, every article about us used the same Terminator photo because that was the only way to think about what AI was. If you asked people then about AI, they would say, oh yeah, it’s going to drive my car someday. Or like, oh yeah, that’s like the robots are going to fight us all – I’ve seen that movie. And that was really the way people thought about AI. And that was on my mind and a lot of our minds,” Altman told the host John Hope Bryant
Altman proceeded to mention that in the beginning, OpenAI undertook a somewhat alarming robot project, focused on developing video game-playing agents for intricate environments. He acknowledged that looking back, this concept appeared quite intimidating to him. He explained that at that time, he and his team were relatively young and might not have fully grasped the consequences.
“Originally we had a project with robots – obviously a little scary – and we were working on agents that could play video games, with the thinking that as they got smarter and smarter they could work in more complex environments. Now, we look back at that and think that was a scary idea. We were sort of young and naive at the time,” Altman said.
The CEO then conveyed that apprehensions about AI were largely driven by media portrayals, influencing OpenAI’s initial and persistent worries since its establishment. He further stated that these narratives continued to mold the company’s approach and foster a sense of caution.
“But all of those thoughts about the ways this can go wrong – you don’t need much imagination, because we’ve grown up with that in the media and it is such a compelling story, so when we started OpenAI we worried about that a lot. And we still do,” Altman said.
Altman is among the Silicon Valley CEOs actively advocating for transparency and regulations in AI research and development. On numerous occasions, the CEO has emphasized both the benefits and drawbacks of the rapidly spreading influence of AI worldwide.
