Oprah’s New "Favorite Thing": Safe AI

‍America’s best-beloved circles up a crew of technologists, humanists, and a law enforcer on what’s next for humanity in AI.

You can tell AI is having its moment when Oprah Winfrey is having a special episode, “AI and the Future of Us,” about this rapidly advancing technology.

On September 12, Winfrey invited a variety of experts to have a conversation with her. This group included prominent figures in technology and AI, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Bill Gates, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin, co-founders of Center for Humane Technology, and tech influencer Marques Brownlee. If you’re reading this, you probably know some of those names. This collection of technology pros was no small thing. It was a moment. Winfrey presented a balanced story. While she brought on some Silicon Valley veterans to discuss the promises of AI, the evening developed into concerns about safety not getting its fair share.

Altman concentrated on the fact that “we are limited by what we can imagine,” implicating that AI will take us further than that, but with little focus on what they are doing to take safety into account, despite Winfrey herself pushing him on that. Gates emphasized that politicians need to become familiar with the technology so that they can be comfortable with it, but that it’s become comfortable to emphasize benefits while minimizing the deficits.

On the other side, FBI Director Wray, when asked if we have the laws to protect the vulnerable, made the point that our regulators have to keep pace with technology, which he believes that they are currently not equipped to do.

Winfrey was a balance of excitement about the technology while equally alarmed, too - it was the classic of the balance between the promise and the peril often discussed in the halls of Congress. She was stunned (to Altman: “You talk to Congress every few days?”) and yet led with “What does the world look like in 2035”? It was a perfect example of how all of us feel when we play with AI. What can it do for us… but what can it do to us.

All of that is a very brief summary, but at the end of all the banter, what became clear be the end of the special is that no one believes that AI has any safety controls behind it.

It’s on autopilot.

That’s concerning because AI waits for no one. The Center for AI Policy (CAIP) reminds lawmakers on both sides of the aisle that promise and peril move in tandem with this technology because innovation and safe AI are not mutually exclusive.

This one-hour news special demonstrates that Americans are watching this technology move quickly and with few rules - frankly, they are concerned. Legislators on Capitol Hill must listen.

When Winfrey is worried, we should all be worried.