First, Washington needs to start taking AGI seriously. The potential risks are too great to ignore. Even in a good scenario, AGI could upend economies and displace millions of jobs, requiring society to adapt. In a bad scenario, AGI could become uncontrollable.
Second, we must establish regulatory guardrails for powerful AI systems. Regulation should involve government transparency into what’s going on with the most powerful AI systems that are being created by tech companies. Government transparency will reduce the chances that society is caught flat-footed by a tech company developing AGI before anyone else is expecting. And mandated security measures are needed to prevent U.S. adversaries and other bad actors from stealing AGI systems from U.S. companies. These light-touch measures would be sensible even if AGI weren’t a possibility, but the prospect of AGI heightens their importance.
In a particularly concerning part of Saunders’ testimony, he said that during his time at OpenAI there were long stretches where he or hundreds of other employees would be able to “bypass access controls and steal the company’s most advanced AI systems, including GPT-4.” This lax attitude toward security is bad enough for U.S. competitiveness today, but it is an absolutely unacceptable way to treat systems on the path to AGI. The comments were another powerful reminder that tech companies cannot be trusted to self-regulate.
Finally, public engagement is essential. AGI isn’t just a technical issue; it’s a societal one. The public must be informed and involved in discussions about how AGI could impact all of our lives.
BGF has been pioneering the AI World Society (AIWS) since 2017.
Daniel Colson
https://time.com/7093792/ai-artificial-general-intelligence-risks/