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An OpenAI insider warns of the reckless race to AI dominance
Are AI companies being reckless and ignoring safety concerns in the race to develop superintelligence? On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer is joined by former OpenAI whistleblower and executive director of the AI Futures Project, Daniel Kokotajlo, to discuss new developments in artificial intelligence and his concerns that big tech companies like OpenAI and DeepMind are too focused on beating each other to create new, powerful AI systems and not focused enough on safety guardrails, oversight, and existential risk. Kokotajlo left OpenAI last year over deep concerns about the direction of its AI development and argues tech companies are dangerously unprepared for the arrival of superintelligent AI. If he’s right, humanity is barreling toward an era of unprecedented power without a safety net, one where the future of AI is decided not by careful planning, but by who gets there first.
“OpenAI and other companies are just not giving these issues the investment they need,” Kokotajlo warns, “We need to make sure that the control over the army of superintelligences is not something one man or one tiny group of people gets to have.”
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).GZERO World with Ian Bremmer airs on US public television weekly - check local listings.
AI superintelligence is coming. Should we be worried?
Are AI companies recklessly racing toward artificial superintelligence or can we avoid a worst case scenario? On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer sits down with Daniel Kokotajlo, co-author of AI 2027, a new report that forecasts how artificial intelligence might progress over the next few years. As AI approaches human-level intelligence, AI 2027 predicts its impact will “exceed that of the Industrial Revolution,” but it warns of a future where tech firms race to develop superintelligence, safety rails are ignored, and AI systems go rogue, wreaking havoc on the global order. Kokotajlo, a former OpenAI researcher, left the company last year warning the company was ignoring safety concerns and avoiding oversight in its race to develop more and more powerful AI. Kokotajlo joins Bremmer to talk about the race to superhuman AI, the existential risk, and what policymakers and tech firms should be doing right now to prepare for an AI future experts warn is only a few short years away.
“One of the unfortunate situations that we're in as a species right now is that humanity in general mostly fixes problems after they happen,” Kokotajlo says, “Unfortunately, the problem of losing control of your army of super intelligences is a problem that we can't afford to wait and see how it goes and then fix it afterwards.”
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).GZERO World with Ian Bremmer airs on US public television weekly - check local listings.
What is artificial general intelligence?
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is the holy grail of AI research and development. What exactly does AGI mean, and how will we know when we’ve achieved it? On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer breaks down one of the most exciting (and terrifying) discussions happening in artificial intelligence right now: the race to build AGI, machines that don’t just mimic human thinking but match and then far surpass it. The idea of AGI is still a little hard to define. Some say it’s when a computer can accomplish any cognitive task a human can, others say it’s about transfer learning. Researchers have been predicting AGI’s arrival for decades, but lately, as new AI tools like ChatGPT and DeepSeek become more and more powerful, there is a consensus that achieving true general intelligence in computers isn’t a matter of if, but when. And when it does arrive, they say it will transform almost everything about the way humans live their lives. But is society ready for the huge changes experts warn are only a few years away? What happens when the line between man and machine disappears altogether?
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).GZERO World with Ian Bremmer airs on US public television weekly - check local listings.
Smile! Say cheese for your new AI headshot
My headshots are woefully out-of-date. They’re from just before the pandemic — the last time I really went into an office. Luckily for me, technology has advanced to help me get up to date: Enter the AI-generated headshot.
A bevy of new artificial intelligence tools now promise to generate professional-quality headshots — for a new job, a dating profile, etc. All you need is to upload clear photos of yourself, and the software spits out a series of realistic images for you.
Inspired by The Washington Post, I decided to try two services: Aragon.ai and Try It On. The functionality of the two websites was nearly identical: I uploaded some photos of myself that I thought were nice and paid a small fee of $35 for Aragon, $21 for Try It On, and waited about a half hour for each website to do its magic. When my photos were ready, I clicked and instantly laughed. It gave me full glam.
Both services gave me a lot of photos. I downloaded 100 from each, including a fake version of myself, ones with me in different outfits (suits, cardigans, t-shirts), and different backgrounds (office buildings, nature scenes, streetscapes). Some were moody noir shots, others casual pics primed for a dating app, and some very traditional and corporate — for a LinkedIn profile.
The quality was variable: Some were very good, some were not. My wife and I flipped through, with her commenting “That looks like you!” and “Oh my god that's terrible” and even “Oh, he's cute. I like him.” The software generally had a slimming effect on me, and gave me a squarer jawline and pronounced cheekbones. I was most impressed that it seemed to understand the contours of my hair.
Most of my headshots were still noticeably artificial and not quite at the level where we should worry about deception. Some of the “good” ones either look heavily Photoshopped or like I got a lot of plastic surgery. There’s a term in art and science fiction called the “uncanny valley,” a phenomenon that occurs when someone sees a face that's not quite human — a uniquely eerie sensation, like recognizing alien life. For now, my AI-generated headshots feel like they belong in the uncanny valley.
While there were a few headshots I could use, the technology has a ways to go to avoid alarming folks into thinking I’m a cyborg.