The latest issue of Time magazine features three insightful articles about Person Of The Year. They included 18 pages on Taylor Swift; 10 pages on Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI; and five pages on Lionel Messi, the soccer star.
Although the articles on Swift and Messi are interesting to read (I never thought I’d say that about Swift), the article that stands out from the rest is the one about Altman and his nonprofit program dedicated to building artificial intelligencefor the benefit of humanity, OpenAI. Altman is a 38-year-oldsuperstar who is now CEO of OpenAI. His rise to the top took a brief detour after his board fired him recently with littleexplanation other than he exhibited a ‘lack of candor.’ Within hours of Altman being fired, most of the company’s staff threatened to quit unless the board allowed Altman to return, which it ultimately did.
Altman’s employment history is much less significant than his contributions to OpenAI.
He established the doctrine of ‘iterative deployment’ as a means to build better safety systems in the development of OpenAI. This approach allowed the exposure of AI technology on a gradual basis while it was still comparatively crude, giving people time to adapt to the monumental changes Altman saw coming. Altman felt this was a safe way to wake up the world to the power of AI.
Altman and others have warned that advanced AI could pose ‘existential’ risks on the scale of pandemics and nuclear war. Some critics of AI feel that it could ultimately be used by criminals to destroy civilization. Altman admits that the potential for harm is not zero, but the upside is huge, and AI will be developed to serve the world in a positive way much sooner than could be anticipated.
— Mike Jens
Anchorage
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