Billionaire Elon Musk called for an artificial intelligence “referee” on Wednesday as tech tycoons and lawmakers met for a closed-door summit in Washington, D.C. to discuss the best way to regulate the burgeoning technology.
Billionaire Elon Musk called for an artificial intelligence “referee” on Wednesday as tech tycoons and lawmakers met for a closed-door summit in Washington, D.C. to discuss the best way to regulate the burgeoning technology.
Organized by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Musk was joined by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, former Microsoft boss Bill Gates, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and more than 60 US senators.
“It’s important for us to have a referee,” Musk told reporters, on the sidelines of the summit, adding that regulations were needed “to ensure that companies take actions that are safe and in the general interest of the public.”
Musk referred to AI as a “double-edged sword” that could bring major benefits or have disastrous consequences for humanity — repeating a frequent warning that he and other tech bigwigs have given in recent months.
Meanwhile, Zuckerberg said Congress “should engage with AI to support innovation and safeguards.”
“This is an emerging technology, there are important equities to balance here, and the government is ultimately responsible for that,” Zuckerberg said, arguing that it is “better that the standard is set by American companies that can work with our government to shape these models on important issues.”
The meeting occurred as a growing number of AI critics, from lawmakers to those in Hollywood, calling for federal regulation to stave off any disastrous consequences, including a rise of deepfake content ahead of the 2024 election.
