Everyone Wants to Regulate AI. No One Can Agree How

Clear, but essential. 

Everyone Wants to Regulate AI. No One Can Agree How,  By Wired, May 31, 2023

Clamping limits on such a nascent technology, even one whose baby steps are shaking the earth, courts the danger of hobbling great advances before they’re developed.

As the artificial intelligence frenzy builds, a sudden consensus has formed. We should regulate it!

While there's a very real question whether this is like closing the barn door after the robotic horses have fled, not only government types but also people who build AI systems are suggesting that some new laws might be helpful in stopping the technology from going bad. The idea is to keep the algorithms in the loyal-partner-to-humanity lane, with no access to the I-am-your-overlord lane.

Though since the dawn of ChatGPT many in the technology world have suggested that legal guardrails might be a good idea, the most emphatic plea came from AI's most influential avatar of the moment, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. "I think if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong," he said in a much anticipated appearance before a US Senate Judiciary subcommittee earlier this month. "We want to work with the government to prevent that from happening."

That is certainly welcome news to the government, which has been pressing the idea for a while. Only days before his testimony, Altman was among a group of tech leaders summoned to the White House to hear Vice President Kamala Harris warn of AI's dangers and urge the industry to help find solutions.

From Wired  (listening here to an interview with Sam Altman)