ChatGPT CEO talks Elon Musk feud, criticizes Biden administration’s AI regulations

Sam Altman, CEO and co-founder of OpenAI, spoke about Elon Musk’s feud with him and his views on how regulations related to artificial intelligence (AI) development must be supervised.

Altman appeared on an episode of The Free Press’ “Honestly with Bari Weiss” Podcast which was released on Thursday and Weiss questioned why Musk publicly criticized him for AI safety concerns and filed a lawsuit to stop OpenAI from creating a capped for-profit company structure after initially being founded as a non-profit organization.

Musk was a co-founder of OpenAI, but severed ties with the company in 2018 after being unable to persuade his other executives to put him in charge of a for-profit OpenAI entity or merge the company with Tesla. Weiss noted that Musk compared Altman to the “Little Finger” character who was an antagonist in the “Game of Thrones” series and that the xAI founder said he didn’t trust Altman to run a company that controls the most powerful AI in the world.

“I think it’s because he wants him to control the most powerful AI in the world,” Altman said. “And once again I saw Elon’s attacks for many other people, many of my friends – everyone spends their time in the spotlight. But this all seems to be standard behavior on his part.”

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“It definitely upsets me. I was recently talking to someone I considered close and they said to me, ‘Elon has no friends. Elon has no peers, Elon doesn’t.’ has no friends.’ make friends. And it was a bit of a sad moment for me, because I consider him a friend.” Altman said.

“I can look at this dispassionately, like I remember what it was like when he said OpenAI had a 0% chance of success and you guys are idiots, I’m withdrawing funds and I’m going to do my own thing,” he continued.

“I remember what it was like when there were times since then where he felt like he wanted to sort of reconcile and find a way to work together. And then I remember times where he was like, you know, doing his thing on Twitter If it was just to me, I think it would be a lot more painful,” Altman said. “But you know, I think you see who he is on Twitter, so I can, like, keep it somewhat impersonal and just say, this is about Elon, not me. It still sucks , I had a long time to get used to it, I suppose.

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Weiss noted OpenAI’s recent blog post and court filing pushing back against Musk’s lawsuit against the company and asked Altman if he thought Musk was suing the company for competitive purposes to benefit his company, xAI , rather than genuine concerns about AI safety or ChatGPT-maker’s business structure.

Altman responded that she would have to ask Musk. He then explained that he believed excessive regulation of AI could have “huge negative consequences,” but noted that he, Musk, and other major AI companies were in favor of regulation.

“Some regulation is clearly a good thing. Now I can imagine versions of AI Regulation that are really problematic and would disadvantage small efforts, and I think that would be a real mistake,” Altman explained. “But for some safety guardrails on the most powerful systems, it should only affect the people at the border, this should only affect OpenAI and a small handful of others. I don’t think we’re at the point yet where these systems have huge security implications, but I also don’t think we’re very far from it, so that’s the kind of art here. »

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Weiss asked Altman about arguments made by some AI startups that OpenAI and other large AI companies are seeking to erect regulatory barriers for smaller competitors that could become rivals. He responded that the only regulations he is calling for are for “new and untested” activities that are at the frontier of AI development.

Weiss went on to note comments made by Marc Andreessen on his podcast and his perception that the Biden administration was trying to control AI and regulate it so that there would be only a few large companies that would work with the government and be protected from competition.

“I don’t think that’s true, I don’t know what he’s referring to. I will also say very, very clearly, I think that regulation that reduces competition for AI is a very bad thing,” he said. Altman said. Weiss asked whether OpenAI and other AI companies were meeting with the Biden administration to discuss this type of regulatory arrangement.

“I don’t even think the fact that the Biden administration is competent is enough to… I mean, we were in a room with them and other companies and the administration, but never like: “Here’s our conspiracy theory, we’re going to make it so that only a few companies are capable of creating AI and then you have to do what we say. Never do anything like that,” Altman said.

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The OpenAI co-founder went on to say that he thought Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo was more sensitive to the emergence of AI and the areas that need to be prioritized than the Biden administration as a whole.

“I think Gina Raimondo was and is fantastic. Every time I had a conversation with her I thought she understood. Overall I would say the administration was not that effective ” he said.

“The things that I think should have been the priorities of the administration and that I hope will be the priorities of the next administration are building a massive AI infrastructure in the United States, setting up a supply chain in the United States, things like that,” Altman explained.