Google Brain Co-Founder Claims Tech Companies Inflating Fears About AI Risks
Andrew Ng, adjunct professor at Stanford University and co-founder of Google Brain claims that companies are inflating fears about risks associated with AI. Andrew made this claim to The Australian Financial Review stating that tech companies are hoping for tighter regulation on the premise that “AI could make us go extinct.”
He told the outlet, “There are definitely large tech companies that would rather not have to try to compete with open source, so they’re creating fear of AI leading to human extinction…It’s been a weapon for lobbyists to argue for legislation that would be very damaging to the open-source community.”
These fears are not unfounded if one looks at history. Companies over the years, once they achieve a certain level of market capture, often begin to lobby governments for tighter regulations in their markets.
The effect of this often does little to improve consumer outcomes while raising the bar for up-and-comers. In essence, it reduces the competition. All of this comes with movements across the globe by governing bodies to find ways to regulate AI while not creating innovation barriers.
Multiple groups have plenty to say about AI. With the U.S. Chamber asking Congress to take action with AI regulation, and Goldman Sachs authoring reports of the overall economic boom AI could bring in the near future.
So far China has been at the front of the pack with AI regulation with the nation requiring watermarks and other requirements for generative AI tools. The EU is close behind with the United States still in the early stages of creating an AI framework.
Though in Andrew Ng’s mind, the risks he sees are licensing requirements for AI that could muscle out competition, and harm overall innovation in the field. He’s not anti-regulation, he told the outlet that any framework would require a thoughtful approach.
Fears of the risks associated with AI have grown as the technology has grown in scale over the last two years. This came to a head as back in spring a group of 1,000 researchers asked for AI companies to pause AI research surpassing GPT-4 levels.
Little in terms of action was taken, but it did raise some eyebrows both in and outside the industry as a growing crowd is asking how should AI risk be calculated. Either way, it’s clear that opinions about AI, its risks and benefits are as diverse as the researchers behind the technology.
Originally posted on OpenDataScience.com
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