"It is essential that the most powerful AI is developed with democratic values," said the young entrepreneur, "which means that the leadership of the United States is decisive."
The launch of ChatGPT in November has multiplied the interest of the public, but also of companies, for so-called generative artificial intelligence, that is to say capable of creating content, text, images, sounds or video, after being trained on huge databases.
Generative AI is unleashing passions and many worry about its potential impact on a range of professions, with possible massive job cuts, but more broadly on society as a whole.
"Artificial intelligence has the potential to improve just about every aspect of our lives, but it also creates serious risks," Altman said during his hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law.
"One of my biggest fears is that we, this industry, this technology, are causing significant damage to society," Altman said. "If this technology goes in the wrong direction, it can go quite far. (...) And we want to work with the government to prevent that from happening."
The thirty-year-old recalled that while OpenAI LP, the entity that developed ChatGPT, was a private company, it was controlled by a non-profit organization, "which requires us to work for the wide distribution of AI benefits and maximize the security of AI-based systems".
Sam Altman has regularly expressed support for the establishment of a regulatory framework for artificial intelligence, preferably at the international level.
"I know it seems naïve to propose something like this, it seems very difficult," to achieve, but "there are precedents," he said, citing the example of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
© 2023 AFP