- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman outlined a four-point plan for continued U.S. AI dominance.
- Altman emphasized the need for AI safeguards, infrastructure, and global coalition leadership.
- He called for regulating AI trade and a global strategy that includes developing countries.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has laid out a four-point plan to help the US maintain its advantage in the global AI arms race.
Altman's goal is “for the future of AI to be one that benefits as many people as possible,” he wrote in an op-ed published Thursday in The Washington Post. He called on the United States to lead a “global coalition of like-minded countries” to “make it happen.”
To summarize, according to Altman's ChatGPT: “The urgent question of our time is whether the United States and its allies will steer the future of AI around the world to the benefit of democracies, or allow authoritarian regimes to shape AI for their own power.”
To this end, the first step in Altman's plan is to ensure proper safeguards around AI technology. “U.S. AI companies and industry must develop strong security measures to ensure our coalition maintains leadership in current and future models and allows the private sector to innovate,” he wrote. These measures should include innovations in cyber defenses and data center security that “prevent hackers from stealing critical intellectual property,” he added.
Next comes building the right infrastructure: Altman called on US policymakers to “build, on a much larger scale, in partnership with the private sector, the physical infrastructure that will run the AI systems themselves, from data centers to power plants.”
He said that would create more jobs and help establish AI as a “new industrial base” in the U.S. He also said the U.S. needs to invest in training a new generation of AI innovators, researchers and engineers. “They are our true superpowers,” he wrote.
Third, the U.S. needs to tighten regulations on trade and the transfer of information across borders. That includes “clarifying how the U.S. intends to enforce export controls and foreign investment rules on the global construction of AI systems,” he wrote. It also means establishing rules for where training data, chips, code, and other materials are stored around the world. “It's not just about exporting technology,” he wrote. “It's about exporting the value that technology supports.”
Finally, Altman suggested that the United States should develop a global strategy on AI to ensure that developing countries are not left behind. He offered several solutions, including creating an organization similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency on AI to promote peaceful uses of the technology.
He suggested setting up an investment fund to collect contributions from countries committed to developing AI safely, and another option would be to set up a non-profit organization similar to ICANN (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) dedicated to “maximizing access to the internet to support an open, connected and democratic global community.”
Altman's op-ed comes amid a growing threat from China to U.S. AI dominance. The United States led global AI investment last year, pumping more than $67 billion into the technology, according to the Stanford University Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute. China came in second, investing nearly $8 billion, but most analysts expect that figure to grow rapidly.
“We need a democratic world, a lowercase 'd' democratic world, to win here, and we have an opportunity to make that happen,” Altman told Axios.
