Musk believes that there is a need to establish a regulatory body to supervise artificial intelligence
- Author, James Clayton
- Role, North America technology correspondent
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, said that there is an “overwhelming consensus” on the need to establish regulations governing artificial intelligence, following a meeting that included senior figures in the technology sector in Washington to discuss this important issue.
The meeting, held on Wednesday, was attended by CEOs of technology giants, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
Former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, the company’s current president Satya Nadella, and US lawmakers also attended.
The discussions, which took place behind closed doors, were moderated by US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in the presence of a number of civil rights advocates.
The issue of using the power of artificial intelligence for both good and evil is of great interest to politicians around the world.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the company behind the GPT chat app, testified before a US Senate committee last May, highlighting the potential risks of this new technology.
GBT chat and similar AI applications can be used to provide startlingly human-like answers to questions that are asked of them, but at the same time they can be widely erroneous.
“If this technology is misdirected, it could have serious consequences, which we should address clearly and frankly,” Altman said during that testimony. “So we want to work with the government to prevent that from happening.”
There are also concerns that artificial intelligence will lead to widespread unemployment, develop fraudulent methods, and make misinformation more persuasive.
Artificial intelligence companies also face criticism for designing their models based on data taken from the Internet without permission from the creators of this content or payment for it.
Elon Musk told the BBC last April: “I believe that a regulatory body should be established to supervise artificial intelligence to ensure that this technology does not pose a danger to people.”
In a meeting on Wednesday with lawmakers and civil rights advocates in the United States, Musk said he wants “referees” to monitor artificial intelligence, similar to football referees.
Referring to the potential regulator, Musk added: “I think we will probably see something happen, but I don’t know exactly the time frame or the way it might happen.”
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, told the US Congress: “We must deal with artificial intelligence in order to support innovation and provide the required guarantees.”
He added: “It would be better if the standards (use of artificial intelligence) were set by American companies that could work with our government to establish these models regarding important issues.”
Mike Rounds, a US Senator from the Republican Party, said that this matter may take a long time for Congress to take action in this direction.
Rounds added: “Are we ready to write legislation? No at all, we are not. We have not yet reached that level of readiness yet.”
Democratic Senator Cory Booker said that all participants agreed that “the government has a regulatory role,” but enacting legislation governing the use of artificial intelligence entails major challenges.
