Sam Altman suggests an international agency like IAEA could oversee AI

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is currently on an international tour to discuss artificial intelligence.

During a visit to the UAE on Tuesday, the key innovator raised warnings over AI bringing “existential risk” to humanity, suggesting an international agency like the UN nuclear watchdog oversee the groundbreaking technology.

“No one wants to destroy the world,” the 38-year-old stressed at an event, adding the challenge is how the world is going to manage the innumerable serious risks posed by AI and ensure humans still get to derive benefits from those tremendous capabilities.

Tech giant Microsoft has invested around $1 billion in his company. OpenAI’s ChatGPT has continued to grab the attention of millions across the globe since its launch, as it allows users to generate essay-like answers with simple prompts.

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The popular chatbot’s success offers a glimpse into the way AI could change the way humans learn and work in the future. However, the same technology has also sparked concerns over its potential impact.

Altman and hundreds of other industry leaders signed a letter last month, stressing the need to make “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI” an international priority alongside nuclear wars, pandemics, and other societal-scale risks.

The CEO used the International Atomic Energy Agency as an example of how humans got together to oversee nuclear power. The global agency came into operation in the years after America dropping atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan at the end of WWII.

Lawmakers across the globe are also putting in efforts toward examining AI. The EU is working on an AI law that could become the de facto global standard for the technology. In May, Altman told the US Congress government intervention will be necessary to deal with the risks AI poses.