OpenAI and Google DeepMind Insiders Have Serious Warnings About AI

For OpenAI, the last few weeks have made headlines – and not for the best reasons. The story doesn’t end there: several current and former OpenAI employees, alongside Google DeepMind employees, are now calling out their major AI companies for their oversights, their culture of stifling criticism, and their general lack of transparency.

In an open letter, whistleblowers essentially demanded the right to openly criticize AI technology and the risks associated with it. They wrote that because of the lack of a requirement to share information with government agencies and regulators, “current and former employees are among the few people who can hold [these corporations] accountable to the public,” and said many of them “fear various forms of retaliation” for doing so.

The signatories asked advanced AI companies to commit to certain principles, including facilitating an anonymous process for employees to raise risk-related concerns and that companies will support “a culture of open criticism”, provided that trade secrets are protected in the process. They also asked companies not to retaliate against those who “publicly share confidential risk-related information after other processes have failed.”

In the letter, the group also discusses the risks of AI that they recognize: from the entrenchment of existing inequalities to the exacerbation of misinformation, including the possibility of human extinction.

Daniel Kokotajlo, a former OpenAI researcher and one of the group’s organizers, technology/openai-culture-whistleblowers.html?u2g=i&unlocked_article_code=1.xE0.qXLu.0XwdynmvKcft&smid=url-share” target=”_blank” title=”(opens in a new window)”>told the New York Times that OpenAI is “making a reckless race” to reach the top of the AI ​​game. The company has faced increased scrutiny of its security processes, with the recent launch of an internal security team also raising eyebrows as CEO Sam Altman sits at its helm.