AI takes center stage at Davos

Artificial intelligence is a hot topic in Davos, Switzerland, this week, as government officials and industry leaders gather for the 54th edition of the World Economic Forum summit. There are more than 30 scheduled events about AI concerning jobs, healthcare, ethics, chips, and access.

Among the most "sought-after" attendees are AI executives, including OpenAI's Sam Altman, Inflection AI's Mustafa Suleyman, Google DeepMind's Lila Ibrahim, Cohere's Aidan Gomez, and Mistral AI's Florian Bressand. Altman, who will speak about the benefits and risks of AI on Thursday, gave a recent podcast interview with Microsoft founder Bill Gates, sharing his thoughts on AI regulation.

Altman said that he's interested in the idea of a "global regulatory body that looks at those super-powerful systems" – ones far more powerful than current models like GPT-4 – and suggested that the IAEA, the nuclear regulatory model, might be a good model. "This needs a global agency of some sort because of the potential for global impact.”