OpenAI CEO Sam Altman partly agrees with tech leaders' AI pause call, but…

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has recently responded to the open letter written by the Future of Life Institute calling for a ‘AI (artificial intelligence) research halt’ for six months, which was actively supported by tech tycoons like Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak. Altman agreed to the demand mentioned in the letter, however, added that it was ‘missing most technical nuance about where we need the pause’.

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“I think moving with caution and an increasing rigor for safety issues is really important…The letter I don’t think was the optimal way to address it,” Altman was quoted as saying by CNBC. The top official of the tech firm made the remarks during an event at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he was discussing about AI and business.

OpenAI is the creator of ChatGPT, a AI-powered chatbot devised to create human-like response to users' questions. It created an AI frenzy in the tech world, leading other tech giants to launch their own chatbots.

The Apple and Twitter CEOs, along with academics urged for an immediate halt in the ‘experiments’ related to large language models that is necessary to launch more powerful and advanced ChatGPT 4. The letter was signed by over 25,000 people.

“AI labs and independent experts should use this pause to jointly develop and implement a set of shared safety protocols for advanced AI design and development that are rigorously audited and overseen by independent outside experts,” the letter said. It was published by Musk-funded Future for Life Institute which also claimed that ‘AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to the society and humanity’.

Also read: Twitter boss Elon Musk forms new artificial intelligence company

To this, Altman agreed that there is a need for ‘increased safety bar’ as capabilities of the technology get ‘more and more serious’. Last year, he said that AI technology made him a ‘little bit scared’.

Contrary to this, Musk is reportedly advancing an AI-based project at Twitter and bought thousands of powerful, costly computing processors and hired AI engineering talent.

Tech giants have been working on AI systems, earlier knows as big data or machine learning, for years to assist with translations, targeted advertising and search results.