OpenAI’s global policy chief David Lehane has made a scathing attack against “doomer” narratives that may have triggered the recent attacks at Sam Altman’s home. Admitting that OpenAI needs to be better at communicating the good side of AI – and finding solutions or middle ground for risks as swiftly – Lehane said “some of the conversation out there is not necessarily responsible” and could have dire consequences.
“This is not fun and games,” Lehane told The Standard in an interview, adding that “This is really serious shit” without taking any names.
The OpenAI policy chief described the current state of the AI world as one with two ends. On the one end, there are people that are saying that AI is “going to be the greatest thing ever, everyone’s going to be living in beachside homes, painting in watercolors as they while away their days.” At the other end are the doomers, “who have a very, very negative and dark view of humanity.”
He admitted that AI needs work especially from the point of view of its potential dangers to humanity and that humanity needs to come together to find solutions to the “very real problems AI presents.” But this is not the first time humanity has been presented with such an opportunity. He argued that “you’ve had a series of things that have been put out there about extreme things that are going to happen,” every time there’s been a technology shift like this but none of those things have come to fruition.
Lehane – and by extension OpenAI – believes AI is going to be really good for people, their families and society at large. But it is up to OpenAI – and other AI companies – to explain these positives to people in a better way which it is trying to do.
Soon after the Molotov attack on his home, Sam Altman had penned an open letter, acknowledging that fear and concerns around AI were legitimate but at the same time “words have power” referring to an article posted by The New Yorker that spoke of the “persistent doubts about the head of OpenAI” based on interviews and closely guarded documents. The blog post carried a photo of Sam Altman’s husband and child. “I am sharing a photo in the hopes that it might dissuade the next person from throwing a Molotov cocktail at our house, no matter what they think about me,” he wrote.
The attacker, later identified as 20-year-old Daniel Moreno-Gama, was allegedly disillusioned and thought AI was an existential threat to humanity, according to reports.
