Sam Altman Warns of Risks of AI-Powered Chatbots, Discusses Education Changes and Hallucinations Problem
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has warned that the artificial intelligence application chatbot ChatGPT can throw up some very bad outcomes.[0] Announcing the latest version, ChatGPT Plus, Altman admitted that the technology comes with real dangers and society must be very cautious.[0]
Altman, who also co-founded OpenAI, believes that the technology will reshape society as we know it, but can also be “the greatest technology humanity has yet developed” to drastically improve our lives.[1] However, he has stressed that people should be happy that he is “a little bit scared” of the potential of AI, due to the fact that it is incredibly potent and potentially hazardous.[2]
When asked about the possible effects of AI-powered chatbots on education, Altman suggested that education will have to change to accommodate AI technology, much like it did when calculators were invented.[3] He also discussed the “hallucinations problem” of the model, which is that it can confidently state things as if they were facts that are entirely made up.[4]
Altman's co-founder, Ilya Sutskever, warned that it would be “quite easy” to cause “a great deal of harm” with AI models one day.[5] Meanwhile, Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who was also an OpenAI co-founder and made a hefty donation to it, has criticized the shift from a non-profit to a for-profit company.[6]
Altman believes that the AI models should be thought of as a “reasoning engine” rather than a fact database, and that they should be used to reason rather than to memorize.[7] GPT-4 has scored in the 90th percentile on the Uniform Bar Exam and a near-perfect score on the SAT Math test, and is now able to write computer code in most programming languages.[8]
0. “‘We are scared': ChatGPT creator Sam Altman warns about these dangers from AI” Business Today, 19 Mar. 2023, https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/story/we-are-scared-chatgpt-creator-sam-altman-warns-about-these-dangers-from-ai-373977-2023-03-19
1. “OpenAI CEO Worried That ChatGPT May ‘Eliminate Lot Of Current Jobs'” NDTV, 18 Mar. 2023, https://www.ndtv.com/feature/openai-ceo-worried-that-chatgpt-may-eliminate-lot-of-current-jobs-3872789
2. “OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: ChatGPT ‘is going to eliminate a lot of current jobs'” Moneycontrol, 19 Mar. 2023, https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/trends/openai-ceo-sam-altman-chatgpt-eliminate-current-jobs-10274261.html
3. “ChatGPT to take away a lot of existing jobs: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman” ummid.com, 19 Mar. 2023, https://ummid.com/news/2023/march/19.03.2023/chatgpt-to-take-away-a-lot-of-existing-jobs-openai-ceo-sam-altman.html
4. “OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says AI will reshape society, acknowledges risks: ‘A little bit scared of this' – Deltaplex News” Deltaplex News, 16 Mar. 2023, https://www.deltaplexnews.com/openai-ceo-sam-altman-says-ai-will-reshape-society-acknowledges-risks-a-little-bit-scared-of-this/
5. “OpenAI's co-founder says at some point it'll be ‘quite easy, if one wanted, to cause a great deal of harm' with AI models like ChatGPT” Yahoo Canada Finance, 16 Mar. 2023, https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/openais-co-founder-says-point-160124296.html
6. “OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warns that other A.I. developers working on ChatGPT-like tools won’t put on safety limits—and the clock is ticking” Fortune, 19 Mar. 2023, https://fortune.com/2023/03/18/openai-ceo-sam-altman-warns-that-other-ai-developers-working-on-chatgpt-like-tools-wont-put-on-safety-limits-and-clock-is-ticking/
7. “‘We are a little bit scared’: OpenAI CEO warns of risks of artificial intelligence” The Guardian, 17 Mar. 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/17/openai-sam-altman-artificial-intelligence-warning-gpt4
8. “OpenAI CEO says AI will reshape society, acknowledges risks” GMA, 17 Mar. 2023, https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/news/story/openai-ceo-sam-altman-ai-reshape-society-acknowledges-97897122
