ChatGPT’s Sam Altman Testifies Before Senate Judiciary Committee As Calls For AI Regulation Build

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, will testify before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee Tuesday morning as lawmakers prepare regulations for new artificial intelligence tools released for consumers.

“Artificial intelligence urgently needs rules and safeguards to address its immense promise and pitfalls,” Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, wrote in a statement.

“This hearing begins our Subcommittee’s work in overseeing and illuminating AI’s advanced algorithms and powerful technology. I look forward to working with my colleagues as we explore sensible standards and principles to help us navigate this uncharted territory,” Blumenthal said. 

“Artificial intelligence will be transformative in ways we can’t even imagine, with implications for Americans’ elections, jobs, and security,” Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, who also chairs the Senate panel on privacy and technology, said. He added:

“This hearing marks a critical first step towards understanding what Congress should do.”

Besides Altman, the hearing will include testimony from:

• Gary Marcus, Professor Emeritus at New York University; and
• Christina Montgomery, Vice President and Chief Privacy and Trust Officer at IBM.

The surging popularity of AI tools like ChatGPT, which allow users to generate responses via text or images, has received calls from the “Godfather of AI,” Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio and others about the existential risk AI systems pose to the economy and humans.

In recent weeks, the Biden administration unveiled a series of measures to tackle the increased use of AI technology. The Department of Commerce has initiated a process to gather feedback on potential regulations.

There is no question that AI will be transformative in many ways for companies that integrate this technology into their systems. One long-term effect it might cause is a massive layoff wave this decade. Goldman’s latest report (available to pro subscribers in the usual place) indicates up to 300 million jobs are at risk across the Western world.

And BCA Research’s latest report on AI has an ominous outlook about the technology:

“The safety risks around AI are huge, and we think there is a more than 50/50 chance AI will wipe out all of humanity by the middle of the century.” 

The next step for lawmakers on Capitol Hill is some form of regulation of AI. However, those next steps need to be clarified.

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