(Fox News) OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told a panel of senators Tuesday that his greatest fear as his company develops artificial intelligence capabilities is that it causes major harmful disruption for people, and acknowledged that AI has this potential downside if it isn’t properly regulated.
“My worst fears are that we cause significant – we, the field, the technology industry – cause significant harm to the world,” Altman told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee. “I think that could happen in a lot of different ways. It’s why we started the company.”
“It think if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong and we want to be vocal about that,” he added. “We want to work with the government to prevent that from happening.”
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, takes his seat before the start of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law Subcommittee hearing on “Oversight of A.I.: Rules for Artificial Intelligence” on Tuesday, May 16, 2023. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“But we try to be very clear-eyed about what the downside case is and the work that we have to mitigate that,” Altman added.
Altman’s admission, and comments from him and other witnesses about the need for government regulation around AI, prompted Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., to note that companies rarely come to Congress to say “please regulate us.”
Subcommittee Chairman Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said one of his specific worries is job loss, and Altman acknowledged that jobs will likely be affected.
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