OpenAI Lays Out Plan For Dealing With Dangers of AI

OpenAI, the AI company behind ChatGPT, laid out its plans for staying ahead of what it thinks could be serious dangers of the tech it develops, such as allowing bad actors to learn how to build chemical and biological weapons. From a report: OpenAI's 'Preparedness' team, led by MIT AI professor Aleksander Madry, will hire AI researchers, computer scientists, national security experts and policy professionals to monitor its tech, continually test it and warn the company if it believes any of its AI capabilities are becoming dangerous. The team sits between OpenAI's 'Safety Systems' team, which works on existing problems like infusing racist biases into AI, and the company's 'Superalignment' team, which researches how to make sure AI doesn't harm humans in an imagined future where the tech has outstripped human intelligence completely.

Madry, a veteran AI researcher who directs MIT's Center for Deployable Machine Learning and co-leads the MIT AI Policy Forum, joined OpenAI earlier this year. He was one of a small group of OpenAI leaders who quit when Altman was fired by the company's board in November. Madry returned to the company when Altman was reinstated five days later. OpenAI, which is governed by a nonprofit board whose mission is to advance AI and make it helpful for all humans, is in the midst of selecting new board members after three of the four board members who fired Altman stepped down as part of his return. Despite the leadership 'turbulence,' Madry said he believes OpenAI's board takes seriously the risks of AI that he is researching. 'I realized if I really want to shape how AI is impacting society, why not go to a company that is actually doing it?'

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