AI Boss Tells Congress: Please Regulate Us

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Good morning!

Here’s a tip on this Wednesday: Americans have ‘tipping fatigue’.

Part of the problem is that iPads everywhere from coffee shops to airport kiosks are automatically asking shoppers if they want to leave a tip. And if you don’t (no judgement), you have to press “no tip” (and hope no one behind you is peering down at the screen). The pressure!

That said, no tips needed here — unless it’s a tip about a great story.

Have a good one!

Mosheh, Jill, & Courtney

🗞 AI Alarm Arrives In Washington

You’ve probably been hearing a lot about AI and ChatGPT recently. On Tuesday, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, headed to DC to answer questions about the technology and how to make sure things don’t go “quite wrong.”

REGRETS, THEY HAVE A FEW
A lot of lawmakers admit that they missed the opportunity to effectively regulate social media — and it’s a mistake they don’t want to make again when it comes to AI. In short: they are hoping to move on from letting Big Tech “move fast and break things.”

Senator Dick Durbin (D., Ill.): “When it came to online platforms, the inclination of the government was to get out of the way… I’m not sure I’m happy with the outcome as I look at online platforms and the harms they have created… I don’t want to make that mistake again.”

MR. CHATGPT CALLS FOR REGULATION
This time around, Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO — the man behind ChatGPT — appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and actually ASKED for regulations when it comes to artificial intelligence. He said AI could be as impactful for humanity as the advent of the printing press, but that it requires safeguards. Altman was open about his greatest fears:

WHAT’S THE CONCERN?
ChatGPT and similar tools can produce human-like text and writing, like term papers and scripts, videos, music, and photos. It can also clone voices and faces that can sometimes be hard to distinguish from the real world. One senator showcased a convincing AI-cloned recording of his voice during the hearing. It came as several lawmakers expressed alarm about what this could mean for elections and the spread of misinformation.

That came as Altman laid out a three-point plan to regulate AI:

• Form a new government regulatory agency charged with licensing AI models. Empower it to revoke licenses for companies whose models don’t comply with government rules.

• Create a set of safety standards for AI models, including evaluations of their dangerous capabilities. For instance, models would have to pass certain tests for safety, such as whether they could “self-replicate” or go rogue and start acting on their own.

• Require independent audits of the models’ performance on various metrics.

WHAT WE DIDN’T HEAR
Absent from Altman’s proposals: requiring AI models to offer transparency into their training data — what info/sources they are using to get AI smart — and what data they are feeding in. It’s something other experts have called for, and is part of new rules Europe is looking to pass on AI.

⏳ SPEED READ

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🗓 ON THIS DAY: MAY 17

1954: The Supreme Court unanimously rules in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. The court finds that the existing precedent of “separate but equal” is not legal. Arguing successfully for the plaintiffs was attorney Thurgood Marshall. He would be appointed to the Supreme Court in 1967.

1792: Meeting on what is now Wall Street in New York City, a group of two dozen businessmen formed what would become the New York Stock Exchange.

1939: The first televised sporting event takes place in the US: a college baseball game between Princeton and Columbia.

2004: Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage as it begins issuing marriage licenses to gay couples. The Supreme Court would legalize it nationally in 2015.