The new head of OpenAI, an ‘apocalyptic’ who wants to stop artificial intelligence

Who is the right person to lead a leading artificial intelligence (AI) company with Microsoft as its main partner? After the dismissal of Sam Altman, the independent directors of OpenAI have thought that the ideal is Emmett Shear, a person who sees artificial intelligence as a threat to humanity and who hated Microsoft. ChatGPT would never have thought of that.

Shear, 40, has defined himself as a doomer, a fatalist or apocalyptic. He belongs to the group of those who believe that there is a high risk that artificial intelligence will become aware of itself, begin a process of continuous self-improvement and end up destroying humanity. Something like Terminator, but without time travel. He has been in favor of slowing down the development of artificial intelligence to minimize the risks.

In an interview last June for a podcastHe explained his position. After saying that he is generally in favor of new technologies, he clarifies: “I have a very specific concern with AI.” Shear explained that artificial intelligence will be able to program, design microprocessors, materials, energy and everything necessary to build an artificial intelligence, entering a loop in which each artificial intelligence will improve the next more and more quickly. “That type of intelligence is something intrinsically very dangerous,” he indicated, before referring to the sequence of arguments and conditions that he has just explained: “I know that Eliezer [Yudkowsky, un activista de la seguridad en la inteligencia artificial] He thinks we are all surely doomed. I buy your argument of destruction, I buy the logical chain, but my probability of destruction is between 5% and 50%, a very wide range,” he indicated.

Still, he considered it terrifying: “That should make you shit your pants. And it’s not just extinction at the human level. Extinct humans is bad enough. It’s like, the potential destruction of all value in the light cone. Not just for us, but for any alien species caught in the explosion’s wake. “It’s like a bomb that destroys the universe,” he added, comparing the risk of artificial intelligence to someone inventing a way to make nuclear bombs 10 times more powerful just with sand and bleach.

The new CEO of OpenAI has spent his entire career on Twitch, the social video network. A gifted computer scientist, he founded Justin.tv with his classmate Justin Kan. That company then evolved into Twitch. He helped transform a platform specialized in broadcasting video games into an entertainment giant, which Amazon bought for $970 million in 2014. He himself is very fond of video games: “The Twitch thing was because I like it very, very, very much.” , a lot Starcraft”he said at a company conference about Activision Blizzard’s strategy game, according to Bloomberg. Almost no one broadcast games on streaming. He was running Twitch until last March, when he decided to leave to dedicate time to his newborn son. The platform has received criticism for not being able to stop the machismo, sexism, racism and harassment of minors of many of its users in the comments.

Sexism

The manager does not hold back on social networks and that has led him, for example, to make hurtful comments against Microsoft, OpenAI’s main partner, client and supplier. “When I interned at Microsoft, every check felt like payment for a piece of my soul in the mail,” he tweeted in July. But also to show himself as sexist and sexist. In August, before her appointment to OpenAI, Shear responded to a post about women advocating “free use,” always being sexually available to their partners, by stating that it was a “BDSM fetish.” [dominación, sumisión y sadomasoquismo] of non-consent/humiliation.” She added in another message that “40-60% of women seem to have rape/non-consent fantasies,” citing a Wikipedia article.

The new interim head of OpenAI has been in favor of slowing down the development of artificial intelligence: “I am in favor of slowing down. “We can’t learn to build safe AI without experimenting, and we can’t experiment without progressing, but we probably shouldn’t be moving at full speed either,” he tweeted just two months ago.

Shear is a peculiar choice for a leading company in artificial intelligence, but it fits with the idea of ​​the current independent directors who have taken power at OpenAI. According to the letter in which the employees asked for their resignation, these directors, whose task is not to maximize the value of the company but rather the good of humanity, informed the managers that “allowing the destruction of the company would be consistent with the mission.” ”. The new manager is linked to the effective altruism movement, as are two independent directors who have been left with control of OpenAI. That movement has strong reservations about advanced artificial intelligence.

Unlike Altman’s dismissal, OpenAI has not publicly announced Shear’s signing, so it has not stated its reasons or why his position is provisional. He presented the appointment through an internal communication and it was the manager himself who told his reasons for accepting the position on the social network from OpenAI. After consulting with my family and reflecting on it for just a few hours, I have accepted,” he wrote.

“I had recently resigned as CEO of Twitch due to the birth of my son, who is now nine months old. Spending time with him has been as rewarding as I thought it would be, and I was happily avoiding full-time employment. I have accepted this job because I believe that OpenAI is one of the most important companies that exist today. When the board shared the situation and asked me to accept the position, I did not make the decision lightly. Ultimately, I felt I had a duty to help if I could,” he explained this Monday as part of a long message.

Future in the air

In his statement of intent he talks about guaranteeing the success and stability of OpenAI and shows his “respect” for everything the firm has built so far. “It’s not just an incredible research project and software product, but an incredible company. I am here because I know it, and I want to do everything in my power to protect it and make it grow even more,” he says.

Shear won’t have it easy. 95% of OpenAI employees have threatened to leave the company due to the firing of Sam Altman. Microsoft has shown itself willing to sign them all if necessary, but other technology companies have also made offers to them. The future of the artificial intelligence firm is up in the air with that potential mass defection. Shear himself has made it a priority to investigate the circumstances of Altman’s dismissal and, according to Bloomberg, is willing to resign if there is no evidence of inappropriate behavior on the part of his predecessor.

As a curiosity, when ChatGPT is asked who would be a good CEO for OpenAI, their list of five is as follows: the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk; Microsoft chief Satya Nadella; DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis; former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng.

An alternative for most tasks would be to put artificial intelligence in charge, but that’s Emmett’s idea: “No irony. Most CEO work (and most executive positions) is highly automatable. Of course, there are key decisions that cannot be replaced,” he tweeted on the eve of Sam Altman’s firing.

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