The U.K. government is taking too "narrow" a view of AI safety and risks falling behind in the AI gold rush, according to a report released today. The report, published by the parliamentary House of Lords' Communications and Digital Committee, follows a months-long evidence-gathering effort involving input from a wide gamut of stakeholders, including big tech companies, academia, venture capitalists, media and government. Among the key findings from the report was that the government should refocus its efforts on more near-term security and societal risks posed by large language models (LLMs) such as copyright infringement and misinformation, rather than becoming too concerned about apocalyptic scenarios and hypothetical existential threats, which it says are "exaggerated."
A professor who taught Sam Altman, the entrepreneur behind ChatGPT, has warned US tech giants are “hyping up fears” over artificial intelligence (AI) in order to suffocate potential rivals with regulation.