• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, September 17, 2024

OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman and FBI Director Christopher Wray gave their perspectives on AI in interviews conducted by Oprah Winfrey for her prime-time ABC special “AI and the Future of Us,” airing Tuesday night.

Based on a preview of the show provided in advance by ABC, here is some of what they had to say on topics such as the government’s role in managing AI, and the threat of AI-based crime.

(The questions have been edited and paraphrased for brevity from Oprah’s original questions.) 

Interview Excerpts: OpenAI’s Altman: 

Do you think AI is growing and evolving too quickly?

Sam Altman: If we made an AI system that was better at doing AI research than all of OpenAI, and you could push a button and just say, ‘Improve really fast,’ that’s an example of something that I think would be moving too fast.

What should the role of government be as AI grows? 

Altman: A partnership between the companies that are developing this technology and governments is really important. … One of the first things to do -- and this is now happening -- is to get the government to start figuring out how to do safety testing of these systems like we do for aircraft or new medicines or things like that. And I think from there, if we can get good at that now, we’ll have an easier time figuring out exactly what the regulatory framework is later.

Who do you interface with in the U.S. government?

Altman: We speak with a lot of people in the executive branch and then dozens of people fairly regularly in Congress. I personally probably have some conversation with someone in the government every few days.

[I talk with them about] what the U.S. needs to do to lead here, how we’re going to build enough data centers, how we’re going to deal with chips and where those chips are produced and make sure that geopolitically we have a good strategy there, how to think about safety for AI, how the government should test it, how to think about collaboration with other governments, what the economic impact of this is going to look like [and] how the government should be using this.

Interview Excerpts: FBI Director Christopher Wray:

How is AI changing and impacting the world of crime?

Christopher Wray: “Right now, AI is most useful in taking what I call JV criminals and making them varsity.”

What should Congress do about AI?

Wray: “I would probably leave legislating the legislators, but what I will tell you from an FBI director’s perspective is that this is a type of technology that we see manifesting itself in more and more situations, more and more types of crimes, more and more types of threats, and there is a degree to which overall our laws haven’t kept pace with the technology.

“What I worry about is that the day which is coming -- it’s not here yet, but it’s coming faster than we would like -- where those elite bad guys will find an AI sophisticated enough to take their game to a whole other level.”

“AI and the Future of Us: An Oprah Winfrey Special” airs Tuesday, September 17, at 8 p.m. Eastern on ABC.