As we speak, some of the wealthiest people in the country are trying
to determine what to do in regard to AI and regulations pertaining to AI.
Now, while certain members of Congress are thinking about potential regulations,
you have the developers of this technology basically lobbying
pretty hard to play a big role in how those regulations are shaped.
So, look, one side are the tech lobbyists, okay?
They don't want politicians in the United States to do anything
really when it comes to AI related regulations.
On the other side, you have some, believe it or not,
philanthropists who are genuinely worried about AI and
how it could potentially pose an existential threat to humanity.
So let's start with the lobbyists, let's give you the information about them.
The LA Times reported that technology interests, especially OpenAI,
the nonprofit with a subsidiary for-profit corporation that created ChatGPT,
have gone on the offensive in Washington.
Arguing for regulations that will prevent the technology from posing,
I can't believe they actually reported this with a straight face,
technology from posing an existential threat to humanity, right?
Yeah, that's what the technology interests are doing right now,
they're lobbying hard for regulation.
If you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you.
Come on, guys, come on, guys, who raises their hand and
says, mommy, mommy, I want more rules?
They don't want rules, they don't want regulations.
That's insane, but anyway, lemme continue.
So AI companies are spending money to ask politicians,
in my opinion, to not meaningfully regulate, but
these companies expect some kind of return on their investment, right?
So that's really all you need to know.
It's not that these executives are bad guys,
it's that they're driven by incentives and the incentive here is profit.
But nonetheless, Sam Altman, OpenAI's 38-year-old chief executive,
has met with at least 100 lawmakers in Washington recently,
and OpenAI is on the hunt for a chief congressional lobbyist.
A source familiar with the lobbying activity of
these AI companies told the LA Times that their efforts are already paying off.
So the sources conversations with Washington insiders
revealed a deference to Altman.
I've had multiple senior individuals in Washington,
people who are listening to members of Congress say something to the effect of,
well, Sam seems like a good guy, and
he certainly came off well in the hearing, so maybe we just let it play out.
Listen, guys, let's just wrap this up, there's gonna be no regulation.
>> [LAUGH] >> Okay, Let's just wrap this up,
I don't wanna have endless conversations about like, what's the government gonna do
to make sure that we're protected from the potential side effects of this technology,
they're not gonna do anything.
>> So I think that you're very likely right about the government, but
you're gonna be shocked to find out that on this one, I'm not as skeptical
as you are about the executives interest, and I'll tell you why.
Because normally I'd say, Woody, what, are we joking?
Nobody's interested in the general welfare,
they're interested in an extra buck, right?
And so the idea that ExxonMobil is giving money to politicians for
the general good is hilarious, right?
So but in this case, they know that greed can drive people to write
a program that is too aggressive, right?
So once you give artificial intelligence a certain goal, it doesn't think like
a human, it just says, execute the goal, it just finds creative ways to execute it.
But you have to build in morality, like, don't do this, don't do that,
don't do this.
But that morality sometimes when it comes to AI can cost money or
can make it harder to get to your ultimate goal.
So if they take out some of those safeguards, they might get to their goal
of making more profits soon, but these executives might realize if you do that,
we're all toast that this is a really bad idea.
To give you an extreme example, okay,
this is what people are worried it's going towards.
We did a story a couple of weeks ago about how the Pentagon ran simulations with AI,
and they told it to go destroy a target.
And in the simulation, not in real life, they forgot to say or they didn't say,
hey, they said, don't kill people, you're not allowed to kill these people
to get to that goal of killing that person and that target, right?
But AI figured out a way around it, they're like, okay, I'm not going to kill
the people that are stopping me because humans are telling me not to do that but
my primary objective is to take out that target.
So it took out the building that the humans were in, so it didn't kill
the humans that were telling it to stop, but it destroyed the building, right?
Thank God it's a simulation.
So some of these people that are involved in AI go,
this is pretty freaking dangerous, and we should be really careful,
and greed is gonna drive people to not be careful, so watch out.
>> Now, you'll be happy to find that while it is, in my opinion,
very unlikely that Congress will do anything to regulate AI for
ordinary people, they have managed to pass some rules specifically
protecting themselves, so let's talk about that.
The House is imposing new guardrails on how its employees use large
language models such as ChatGPT.
Offices are only allowed to use ChatGPT Plus,
which is a paid premium version that includes additional privacy features.
Which leads me to believe that they are fully informed on the fact that
there are some privacy concerns when it comes to ChatGPT but
they're totally fine with it when it affects the general public.
>> Yeah, it's the most normal thing in the world like,
Diane Feinstein didn't care at all that the government was using
warrantless wiretapping on all American citizens but
the minute the CIA did wiretapping of the Senate she was like, outrage.
So that's how they normally operate.
>> Now, on the other side, you have incredibly wealthy philanthropists
who are genuinely concerned about what they refer to as rogue AI,
and they are really in cahoots in trying to do something about it.
So The Washington Post did a very lengthy report on this, and they referred to
the wealthy tech philanthropists who have begun recruiting an army of elite
college students to prioritize the fight against rogue AI over other threats.
Open Philanthropy, a charitable organization started by billionaire
Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz alone has funneled nearly half
a billion dollars into developing a pipeline of talent to fight rogue AI.
Building a scaffolding of think tanks, YouTube channels, prize competitions,
grants, research funding and scholarships,
as well as a new fellowship that can pay student leaders as much as $80,000 a year,
plus tens of thousands of dollars in expenses.
>> So if you look at the whole list of people that are chipping in money to that
effort, you'll find a lot of bad guys like Elon Musk, but you'll find good guys, too,
so this is a rare thing that they share.
And this comes from the Silicon Valley bubble where they're talking about things
like this twenty-four-seven, and they think, my God, the most pressing issue for
Americans is how we stop AI from winning 80 years from now.
No, that's your most pressing issue because you're all already incredibly
rich, and you've got these esoteric things to worry about now.
At the same time, I don't mind, I generally like the effort, and
I'm not hating on it.
And as I explained to you in the earlier story, things can get out of hand.
And if you think it's bad that companies are gonna wanna compete and take out some
of the guardrails, what do you think China and North Korea are gonna do or
Iran is going to do or any of these Russia is going to do?
They're gonna take out all the guardrails, so we do have to get prepared for
it, they're not wrong about that.
But just finally, I'd say there's probably a better way to spend the half
a billion dollars in today's world.
But it's a complicated issue, and let's hope that the people most
concerned are not correct and that this is easier to control than it looks,
because otherwise we're headed towards troubled waters.