Sundar Pichai Agrees With Sam Altman, Elon Musk: AI Is Too 'Important Not To Regulate Well'

Alphabet Inc. GOOG GOOGL CEO Sundar Pichai agrees with OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk about developing policy frameworks for artificial intelligence regulations with the help of various stakeholders from governments, industry experts, and civil society. 

What Happened: In an article for Financial Times, Pichai discussed the importance of AI regulation and highlighted the need for balanced and responsible approaches to governing this transformative technology. 

The Google CEO acknowledged that AI is too significant to go unregulated. “I still believe AI is too important not to regulate and too important not to regulate well.” 

See Also: Disgruntled Google Employees Rain Down Memes To Mock CEO Sundar Pichai’s Enormous $226M Salary

In the article, Pichai emphasized the need for policy frameworks that anticipate potential harms while unlocking the benefits of AI. According to him, deep discussions between governments, industry experts, publishers, academia and civil society are necessary to develop appropriate frameworks. 

Pichai also called for international cooperation between the U.S. and Europe to create robust and pre-innovation regulations based on shared values. 

Concluding his thoughts, the chief executive of Google acknowledged the prominence of AI in addressing global challenges like climate change but reiterated that there is still much work to be done to ensure the safe and responsible development of AI for the benefit of all. 

Why It’s Important: Previously, OpenAI’s Greg Brockman shared the company’s new approach to AI governance — one of which appears to be drawing inspiration from the collaborative nature of Wikipedia. 

“We’re not just sitting in Silicon Valley thinking we can write these rules for everyone,” he said at the time. “We’re starting to think about democratic decision-making.”

Last week, Altman testified before Congress and made some bold statements urging AI regulations. 

“I think if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong. And we want to be vocal about that,” Altman said during the hearing. “We want to work with the government to prevent that from happening.”

Earlier, Musk also reiterated his statements about having an oversight community formed of independent parties and industry leaders during The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit. 

According to Musk, this committee should have insights about what companies working on AI developments are up to. 

In March earlier this year, more than 1000 tech experts, including Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn and Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp signed an “open letter” calling for an immediate pause in AI developments “more powerful” than OpenAI’s GPT-4, until safety protocols for such designs are created, executed and evaluated by independent experts.

Check out more of Benzinga’s Consumer Tech coverage by following this link.

Read Next: Google CEO Sundar Pichai Admits To Cheating On Pixel With Samsung Galaxy And iPhone