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A Pragmatic Analysis Of OpenAI’s Testimony Before The Senate
Starring none other but OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman. Seven key takeaways.
Artificial Intelligence. While at least as old as far too many of our geriatric, sleepy, droopy, drooling politicians, it has just now become the centre of global attention. To much of the world, it’s surprising, hence the hype at one extreme, and the doom-and-gloom at the opposite end. No wonder, then, that for nearly three hours we all had the opportunity to witness OpenAI’s CEO being grilled with questions about the future of humanity in an AI-enabled world.
While I have not been silent about many of my skepticisms regarding ChatGPT and machine-generated information, I have always been a supporter of moderate automation. Therefore, I find myself in a very small group of individuals advocating for a balanced use of technology, including AI, and able to interpret the entire conversation from several angles. Of course, being human, I may still come with built-in bias, but in what follows, I will attempt to hold as much of it back as possible for the benefit of my readers, my comment section and my own emotional wellbeing. For those of you who want to watch the reference video, I provided it below. It’s nearly 3 hours long, but all very well-worth watching.
It was a conversation
Compared to similar events in the past involving the likes of say TikTok’s or Meta’s CEO, the tone of it all felt very different, and perhaps for good reasons, which I am going to touch on a bit later. It’s safe to say, barely any of it felt like an interrogation. Yes, there were plenty of tough questions, and some of those answers didn’t always feel satisfactory, but the general tone was positive and gave the impression of a proactive space for conversation in an effort to prevent an AI disaster. Both sides admitted to failures being made in the past and not wanting to repeat them.
