OpenAI Co-Founder Plans to Combat Global Chip Shortage: A Push for Responsible AI Necessary
Summary:
OpenAI's co-founder, Sam Altman, plans to raise $7 trillion for a project targeting the dramatic global shortage of semiconductor chips, primarily driven by the escalating demand for GenAI. However, the proposed substantial investment has sparked debates on the ethics, implications, and responsibilities of surging AI infrastructure. While AI carries the potential for societal benefits, the risks, including algorithmic bias, data privacy, and energy consumption, require urgent attention. Both the Biden administration and the European Union have been advocating responsible AI, emphasizing the need for safety, security, and trustworthiness. Therefore, before such a massive scaling of AI systems, implementing responsible AI is crucial.
OpenAI's co-founder, Sam Altman, is reportedly looking to raise a prodigious sum of $7 trillion for an endeavor that aims to tackle the pronounced global deficit in semiconductor chips, a problem exacerbated by the surge in demand for GenAI. This ambitious project has a much larger purpose, according to Altman, who conveyed, “This world requires more AI infrastructure than currently proposed for construction. Constructing AI infrastructure on a colossal scale, coupled with a resilient supply chain, is integral to economic competitiveness. OpenAI is keen to contribute!”
If this massive investment implies that every structure will lean towards GenAI, the objective is to reach artificial general intelligence, systems that surpass human intelligence, a contentious topic. Related: Bitcoin might reduce down to $30,000, and that's not bad. You must be wondering why we require such massive scaling of AI infrastructure. "You can either contribute towards ensuring our shared future or you can author discourse about why we will fail", Altman also shared in a later post.
Is this venture truly dedicated to preserving our collective future? Or is it specifically aimed at securing OpenAI's future? OpenAI currently relies on Microsoft for more processing capacity and additional datacenters to surpass its growth restrictions, especially the chip shortage that stands in the way of training large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT.
The outrageous amount of capital sought — which surpasses the GDP of every nation barring the United States and China — raises certain ethical questions about Altman’s demand. Technology is a double-edged sword; AI has the potential to bring immense societal benefits, its possible harm and damage are equally profound. As a society, we should insist upon responsible AI and innovation. Responsible innovation should ensure that new technologies bring more solutions than problems for society. This idea applies to all technologies, innovations across all sectors, regions, and organizations.
Before we scale AI systems, shouldn't we address the risks and challenges they present, controlling and reducing their risks, ensuring they don’t increase problems more than solutions? AI systems are driven by data and GenAI will require vast amounts of it. This heavy reliance on data has significant risks and challenges. Incorrect or outdated data can lead to misleading outputs - a problem that gets amplified in the world of LLMs when they process poor information.
Furthermore, one of the key issues with AI systems is algorithmic bias, which often results in discrimination. This issue remains unresolved despite several requests from legislators to address it. GenAI presents its own problems: hallucinations, misinformation, lack of clarification, scams, copyright infringement, privacy infringement, and data security. All these problems have not been properly acknowledged and mitigated.
There's also the AI's vast energy consumption that powers the computers and datacenters. The International Energy Agency forecasts that global electricity demand, spurred on by AI growth, will double by 2026.
The Biden administration and the European Union are advocating for responsible AI – safe, secure, and trustworthy. President Joe Biden's executive order signed in September required that companies develop AI tools to trace and rectify cybersecurity vulnerabilities, apply privacy-preserving techniques, protect consumers, employees, and students. It emphasized on the importance of dealing with algorithmic bias discrimination throughout the development and training of these systems.
In July 2023, OpenAI agreed to work on the risks posed by AI and adhere to responsible AI with the Biden administration. However, OpenAI’s actions in the realm of responsible AI have been insubstantial so far. Like the EO, the European Union’s AI Act emphasizes transparency of downstream development documentation and audit, largely for foundation models and GenAI. AI systems do not currently have a way to provide this information and a need emerges for auditable responsible AI.
With all these considerations, it would be prudent to implement responsible AI before scaling these systems radically. Responsible innovation and ensuring that AI systems are safe, secure, and trustworthy will secure our shared future. This might not be Sam Altman’s method, but it is certainly the correct path.
Published At
2/21/2024 9:57:29 PM
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