Former Twitch CEO Emmett Shea, who was named interim head of OpenAI on Monday, warned that artificial intelligence is “inherently dangerous” and poses a threat of “pants-sucking catastrophe.” ”
Schier’s appointment to the ChatGPT maker began with the abrupt firing of Sam Altman, his close ally and OpenAI president Greg Brockman, and the departure of the two to work at Microsoft. It was the end of a hectic three days. Reopening on Monday morning.
Now, a June interview with Shear on “The Logan Bartlett Show” has resurfaced, with OpenAI’s new president speaking out with his predecessor, Altman, who warned that the technology would bring humanity “to the brink of extinction.” It became clear that they share a similar view of AI. It’s on par with nuclear weapons and pandemics.
“In general, I’m very pro-technology and I truly believe that the positives generally outweigh the negatives,” said Shear, a self-described “techno-optimist” and software investor at Redpoint Ventures. told Mr. Bartlett.
But as AI gets smarter, “the loop will get tighter and tighter and tighter and faster and faster until it’s able to completely self-improve. At that point, it will become very fast,” he says. It’s very fast,” Shear said.
Shear said there is a 50% chance that AI will develop itself at such a rate that it becomes uncontrollable.
“And that kind of intelligence is inherently very dangerous,” he added. “For intelligence is power.”
“If you did that, your pants would fall off,” Shear said.
Altman spoke of such an “apocalypse” occurring. Although he tries not to think too much about the topic, he reportedly has a stash of guns, money, and other survival supplies.
In May, Altman joined 350 other celebrities to sign a one-sentence open letter sponsored by the nonprofit Center for AI Safety that said AI poses an existential threat.
“Reducing the risk of AI extinction should be a global priority, alongside other society-wide risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” experts said in a 22-word statement It was endorsed by Altman, “Godfather of AI” Jeffrey Hinton, Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, among others.
Altman, Hassabis and Amodei were part of a select group of experts who met with President Biden earlier this month to discuss the potential risks and regulation of AI, although AI-specific laws are still in effect in the US. I haven’t.
In testimony on Capitol Hill at the time, Altman expressed support for government regulation of the technology, among other safety barriers.
Altman acknowledged at a Capitol Hill meeting in May that his biggest fear was that AI could “cause significant harm to the world” without oversight.
Mr. Altman’s apocalyptic vision of AI failure is common in Silicon Valley, where a growing number of tech billionaires have poured money into post-apocalyptic contingency plans such as remote bunkers in recent years.
Some, including former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel and Google co-founder Larry Page, have acquired land in New Zealand.
Altman’s “back-up plan” is reportedly to fly to New Zealand with Thiel if society collapses.
