Skip to content

Sam Altman Investing in ‘AI Safety Research’

Published:
June 6, 2015
Author:
Jesse Galef

Contents

(image Matt Weinberger, Business Insider)

Sam Altman, head of Y Combinator, gave an interview with Mike Curtis at Airbnb’s Open Air 2015 conference and brought up (among other issues) his concerns about AI value alignment. He didn’t pull any punches:

(from the Business Insider article)

On the growing artificial-intelligence market: “AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there’ll be great companies.”

On what Altman would do if he were President Obama: “If I were Barack Obama, I would commit maybe $100 billion to R&D of AI safety initiatives.” Altman shared that he recently invested in a company doing “AI safety research” to investigate the potential risks of artificial intelligence.”

$100 billion would be four orders of magnitude larger than FLI’s research grant program. If FLI were a PAC, it might be time for us to run Altman-for-president ads…

This content was first published at futureoflife.org on June 6, 2015.

About the Future of Life Institute

The Future of Life Institute (FLI) is a global non-profit with a team of 20+ full-time staff operating across the US and Europe. FLI has been working to steer the development of transformative technologies towards benefitting life and away from extreme large-scale risks since its founding in 2014. Find out more about our mission or explore our work.

Sign up for the Future of Life Institute newsletter

Join 40,000+ others receiving periodic updates on our work and cause areas.
cloudmagnifiercrossarrow-up linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram