OpenAI's Sam Altman urges US to take leadership on AI

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Thursday called on the U.S. to take a leadership role on artificial intelligence (AI) in order to ensure a democratic future for the rapidly developing technology. 

“The rapid progress being made on artificial intelligence means that we face a strategic choice about what kind of world we are going to live in,” Altman wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post. 

“Will it be one in which the United States and allied nations advance a global AI that spreads the technology’s benefits and opens access to it, or an authoritarian one, in which nations or movements that don’t share our values use AI to cement and expand their power?” he continued. 

Altman, who leads the AI startup behind the popular ChatGPT tool, called for a “U.S.-led global coalition of like-minded countries” and an “innovative new strategy” to achieve this democratic vision. 

He argued that American AI companies need to develop "robust security measures,” while the public and private sectors should work to build "significantly larger quantities” of the physical infrastructure required for AI, such as data centers and power plants.  

“The early installation of fiber-optic cables, coaxial lines and other pieces of broadband infrastructure is what allowed the United States to spend decades at the center of the digital revolution and to build its current lead in artificial intelligence,” Altman noted. 

The OpenAI CEO also urged the U.S. to develop “coherent commercial diplomacy policy for AI,” including on export controls and foreign investment rules, and to “think creatively” about new models for establishing norms around AI. 

Altman pointed to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers as potential models for an international AI decision-making body. 

“While identifying the right decision-making body is important, the bottom line is that democratic AI has a lead over authoritarian AI because our political system has empowered U.S. companies, entrepreneurs and academics to research, innovate and build,” he added in Thursday's op-ed.