Sam Altman says he's concerned about concentration of AI power, calls for 'democratisation'

New Delhi: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Thursday expressed his concerns about concentration of AI power in the hands of a country stating that 'democratising' this technology is the only way forward. According to Altman, one company or country possessing all the AI power, even if it was in the name of safety, would be a "disastrously bad" and that putting tools in the hands of the people, despite all its challenges and downsides, is the logical thing to do.

"I do share the concern about concentration of AI," Altman said in response to a question on the sidelines of the AI Summit. "Our stance is that the only path forward is to heavily democratise AI and to put these tools in the hands of people, even if it comes with some downsides, even if it means that society has got to wrestle with some big challenges."

He also revealed that OpenAI has invented a strategy called iterative deployment that allows people to become familiar with AI innovations and use it even when it's imperfect and has flaws.

Altman clarified that this strategy in no way reflects irresponsibility on OpenAI's part. "It doesn't mean we aren't responsible how we do it, doesn't mean that we don't start conservatively, but it does mean that we empower people to do things with the technology that we ourselves might not like...It means that we try to encourage a robust ecosystem being built around the world," he said.

Altman added that is also means that "we take the trade of empowering people and accepting that society is going to have to wrestle with a new thing, rather than try to hold on all the power for ourselves and say, we can guarantee this or that outcome."