OpenAI leadership upheaval prompts Vitalik Buterin to highlight AI risks

Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has voiced his concerns about “superintelligent” artificial intelligence (AI) following leadership changes at OpenAI. In response to Jan Leike’s resignation, Buterin emphasized the risks associated with the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and the need for a cautious approach. He highlighted the importance of open models that can be run on consumer hardware to prevent a small group of companies from controlling and manipulating human thought. This is Buterin’s second comment on AI in the past week, as he previously discussed OpenAI’s GPT-4 model and its ability to pass the Turing test. The UK government has also raised concerns about the increasing involvement of Big Tech in the AI sector, leading to calls for decentralized AI to ensure more democratic control. OpenAI experienced another departure from its leadership team, with Ilya Sutskever resigning, although he expressed confidence in the development of safe and beneficial AGI. In light of these concerns, there are calls for the use of AI to be regulated and for AI systems to be pitted against each other to prevent any potential AI apocalypse.