On Generative AI. Interview with Philippe Kahn

“ AI will neither save nor doom the world. It’s people that will. “

Q1. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says AI will reshape society, acknowledges risks: ‘A little bit scared of this’  (*) What is your take on this? 

Philippe: At Fullpower-AI, we build a domain-specific generative AI platform so that I may have an insider perspective.  The AI platforms we build are the world’s most rapidly developing technologies. They aren’t just generating text, images, videos, and sounds. They are creating a combination of excitement and anxiety among people and governments across the globe. It’s important to stay ahead of the curve. 

Here are some advantages of Generative AI

1. Assistance and Automation: ChatGPT, Bard, and similar models can provide valuable assistance and automation in various tasks. They can answer questions, provide recommendations, assist with research, and even automate certain processes, saving time and effort.
2. One-on-one personalization for learning, researching, and automating. 
3. Creativity: Generative AI can create new and original content, including text, images, and music. It can develop ideas and solutions that some humans might have not considered. 
4. Democratization of knowledge and content: Generative AI can make complex information and technologies more accessible to a broader audience. It can simplify and explain complex concepts more understandably, allowing people to engage with information that might otherwise be challenging to understand.

Here are some disadvantages of generative AI: 

1. Bias and Misinformation: Generative AI models like ChatGPT can inadvertently reflect and amplify biases present in the training data. The model’s outputs may also contain similar biases or misinformation if the training data contains biased or inaccurate information. And, of course, there is a potential for a compounding effect. 
2. Potential nonsense generation: Although AI models can generate coherent responses, they often need a true understanding of the content. They rely heavily on patterns, brute force data manipulation, and statistical correlations in the data rather than true comprehension, which can lead to incorrect or nonsensical answers with a potentially compounding effect. 
3. Ethical Concerns: There are ethical concerns surrounding generative AI, particularly when it comes to deep fakes and the potential for malicious use. These models can be misused to create convincing fake content, significantly affecting opinion, attitude, policy, privacy, security, and trust. It’s the old perverse: “The bigger the lie, the more will believe it.” 
4. Overreliance and Dependency: As generative AI becomes more prevalent, there is a risk of overreliance and dependency on these systems. People might rely too heavily on AI-generated content without critically evaluating its accuracy or considering alternative perspectives, leading to intellectual laziness and bigotry. 
5. Unintended Consequences:  It’s easy with these systems to produce “credible” spam, phishing, or propaganda with very negative societal impacts.

Recognizing and addressing these negatives is important to ensure the responsible development and deployment of generative AI technologies. We are fully aware of that at Fullpower-AI and think about it continuously. 

Q2. What do you think is the Social Impact of Chat GPT-4? 

Philippe: Per your prior question ChatGPT, Bard, and others already have a profoundly positive and negative impact. 

For example, more advanced generative AI could increase automation in various industries and job sectors. While this can improve efficiency and productivity, it may also result in job displacement or changes in the job market, requiring individuals to adapt to new roles and acquire new skills.

It’s important to remember that these are all speculative impacts based on the general trajectory of AI advancement. The specific social impact of the AI systems would depend on various factors, including design, deployment, and the actions taken by developers, policymakers, and society to shape its use.  

AI will neither save nor doom the world. It’s people that will. 

Q3. Do you use Chat GPT-4?  What do you think about it? 

Philippe: At Fullpower-AI, we build domain-specific generative AI systems targeting sleep management, breathing anomalies, skincare, industrial automation, etc. As general-purpose systems, ChatGPT and Bard have proven their usefulness. It’s important to remember the safeguards per your question 1. 

Q4. In the interview above, it is mentioned that,  “GPT-4 is just one step toward OpenAI’s goal to eventually build Artificial General Intelligence, which is when AI crosses a powerful threshold which could be described as AI systems that are generally smarter than humans.” Is this Science Fiction, or is it something that may happen? 

Philippe: Building Artificial General Intelligence is challenging. It remains controversial. This is way passed the Turing test because human behavior and intelligent behavior are not the same things.

Regarding feasibility, there are varying opinions regarding the potential for achieving AGI. I believe we will achieve 90% of AGI in the next decade. The last 10% may take a very long time. 

It is important to approach AGI development cautiously, ensuring responsible and ethical practices are in place to address potential risks and consequences. Continued research, collaboration, and discussions are necessary to advance our understanding of AGI and its societal implications.

Qx anything else you wish to add here?

Philippe:  While there is no definitive answer, it is crucial to consider the potential risks and take precautions to ensure AGI’s safe development and deployment. To mitigate risks, we advocate for AGI’s development with safety and ethics. Part of the challenge is the geopolitical competition. We must ensure that nations on the fringe don’t exploit loopholes. Personally, I believe in progress and that AI technology can have a deep positive impact on our future. 

Resources:

(*) Source: abc news. OpenAI CEO, CTO on risks and how AI will reshape society, March 16, 2023, 

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Philippe Kahn is a highly successful serial entrepreneur who founded a number of leading companies, including Fullpower-AI, LightSurf, Starfish Technologies, and Borland.