SEATTLE: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman defended his company's AI technology as safe for widespread use amid growing concerns about the potential risks and lack of adequate safeguards of ChatGPT-style AI systems. .
Altman's comments, made at a Microsoft event in Seattle, come just as a new controversy erupts over OpenAI's AI voice, which closely resembles that of actress Scarlett Johansson. I said.
The CEO, who rose to global fame after OpenAI released ChatGPT in 2022, also addressed questions about the safety of the company's AI following the resignation of the team responsible for long-term AI risk mitigation. I'm here.
“My biggest advice is, these are extraordinary times, and you have to take advantage of them,” Altman told the audience of developers looking to build new products using OpenAI's technology.
“Now is not the time to postpone plans or wait for the next thing,” he added.
OpenAI is a close partner of Microsoft and provides the foundational technology for building AI tools, primarily the GPT-4 large-scale language model.
Microsoft is jumping on the AI bandwagon, launching new products and encouraging users to take advantage of the power of generative AI.
Altman said that while GPT-4 is “far from perfect, it is generally considered to be robust and secure enough for a wide range of uses.”
Altman claimed that OpenAI has gone to “tremendous effort” to ensure its models are secure.
“When you take a drug, you want to know what's safe, and with our model, you want to know that it's robust to work the way you want it to,” he added.
But last week, questions about OpenAI's commitment to safety resurfaced after the company disbanded its SuperAlignment group, a team dedicated to mitigating the long-term risks of AI.
In announcing his departure, team co-leader Jan Reike criticized OpenAI for prioritizing “shiny new products” over safety in a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter).
“For the past few months, my team has been sailing against the wind,” Reike said.
“These problems are going to be very difficult to solve, and I'm concerned that we're not on track to get there.”
Shortly after the controversy, Johansson issued a public statement expressing outrage that the voice used in OpenAI's ChatGPT resembled her voice in the 2013 film “Her.”
The audio in question, called “Sky,” was featured in OpenAI's release of its more human-like GPT-4o model last week.
Altman apologized to Johansson in a brief statement Tuesday, but insisted the voice was not hers.
