To expound, this just seems like a power grab to me, to "lock in" the lead and keep AI controlled by a small number of corporations that can afford to license and operate the technologies. Obviously, this will create a critical nexus of control for a small number of well connected and well heeled investors and is to be avoided at all costs.
It's also deeply troubling that regulatory capture is such an issue these days as well, so putting a government entity in front of the use and existence of this technology is a double whammy — it's not simply about innovation.
The current generation of AIs are "scary" to the uninitiated because they are uncanny valley material, but beyond impersonation they don't show the novel intelligence of a GPI... yet. It seems like OpenAI/Microsoft is doing a LOT of theater to try to build a regulatory lock in on their short term technology advantage. It's a smart strategy, and I think Congress will fall for it.
But goodness gracious we need to be going in the EXACT OPPOSITE direction — open source "core inspectable" AIs that millions of people can examine and tear apart, including and ESPECIALLY the training data and processes that create them.
And if you think this isn't an issue, I wrote this post an hour or two before I managed to take it live because Comcast went out at my house, and we have no viable alternative competitors in my area. We're about to do the same thing with AI, but instead of Internet access it's future digital brains that can control all aspects of a society.
Although I assume if he’s speaking on AI they actually intend on considering his thoughts more seriously than I suggest.
Shouldn't we be evaluating ideas on the merits and not categorically rejecting (or endorsing) them based on who said them?
The problem is when only the entrenched industry players & legislators have a voice, there are many ideas & perspectives that are simply not heard or considered. Industrial groups have a long history of using regulations to entrench their positions & to stifle competition...creating a "barrier to entry" as they say. Going beyond that, industrial groups have shaped public perception & the regulatory apparatus to effectively create a company store, where the only solutions to some problem effectively (or sometimes legally) must go through a small set of large companies.
This concern is especially prescient now, as these technologies are unprecedentedly disruptive to many industries & private life. Using worst case scenario fear mongering as a justification to regulate the extreme majority of usage that will not come close to these fears, is disingenuous & almost always an overreach of governance.
of course, but just because those ideas are unheard, doesn't mean they are going to be any better.
An idea should stand on its own merits, and be evaluated objectively. It doesn't matter who was doing the proposing.
Also the problem isn't that bad ideas might get implemented, but that the legislature isn't willing or able to make updates to laws that encoded a bad idea. Perhaps it isnt known that it is a bad idea until after the fact, and the methods of democracy we have today isn't easily able to force updates to bad laws encoding bad ideas.