On the latest episode of the Washington AI Network podcast, host Tammy Haddad interviews one of the most knowledgeable journalists on AI Jeremy Kahn, Fortune AI Editor and Author of “Mastering AI: A Survival Guide to Our Superpowered Future.”
Khan talks about how AI “could be the last fully man-made, human-invented invention,” and shares his thoughts on the global repercussions. He calls for government action to regulate the expansion of lethal autonomous weapons, fund digital infrastructure for countries with low-resource languages, and create robust guardrails for companies to invest in AI that complements, rather than replaces workers. The author also expounds on where Google, OpenAI, NVIDIA, Amazon, Meta, and Elon Musk stand in the race to artificial general intelligence (AGI) and possibly artificial superintelligence (ASI). Here are some other important AI issues.
Kahn on the expansion of warfare using AI systems: “This is one of the areas I’m most concerned about. It’s truly terrifying. I think what’s happening, we are moving into a situation where some of the doomsday scenarios that human rights campaigners have worried about for decades … we’re very close to that now if you look at the technology being deployed both in Ukraine and, yes, some of the things that have happened in Gaza.”
On NVIDIA’s entry in the AI race: “They’re already offering their own cloud of AI computing tasks. They are clearly moving what’s called ‘up the stack’ when it comes to this technology… It’s an interesting one because everyone’s getting in everyone else’s space …
“Google and Microsoft … They’re more interested than ever in creating their own hardware to compete with NVIDIA. They’re going to get into NVIDIA’s business, NVIDIA is saying, ‘We’ll get into your business too.’ And that gives them all some leverage in these discussions.”
On implementing a robot tax: “If a company seems to be doing well, if it’s growing its top line and its profits and yet at the same time shedding workers, while deploying some sort of automation, then I think it should be subject to a robot tax.”
Listen to the full episode on Audioboom, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.