Clegg warns AI must not stay in ‘clammy hands’ of Silicon Valley
ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) needs to be freed from the “clammy hands” of Silicon Valley, Facebook’s Sir Nick Clegg has said, as the tech giant seeks to counteract the rise of Openai’s CHATGPT.
The former deputy prime minister, who now serves as president of global affairs at Facebook owner Meta and is a key adviser to Mark Zuckerberg, said AI tools needed to be made widely and freely available, rather than controlled by a handful of US tech giants.
Meta has been pushing to “open source” its AI tools by making them publicly available to other developers. Currently, most rival AI tools are a black box with little detail on how they are built or work.
Speaking at a Meta event in London yesterday, Sir Nick said it was important to “democratise” the technology “so it is not just kept in the clammy hands of a small number of very large and wellheeled companies in California”. He echoed remarks by Yann Lecun, Meta’s AI research chief, who said: “This cannot be done by a handful of companies on the west coast of the US.”
Like others in Silicon Valley, Meta was caught flat-footed by the launch of Openai’s CHATGPT, which proved a surprise hit. Meta chief Mr Zuckerberg has since sought to catch up and position the company as a leader in AI. The company is buying up 350,000 powerful AI chips to develop its technology.
Meta has sought to make its programs and code widely available to developers in a move that could position it as a future dominant player in AI if many choose to build on its platform. The jockeying among Silicon Valley companies to win market share in AI comes despite fears that the technology’s rollout may be being rushed.
Researchers have raised concerns that AI bots are already being used to manipulate the public through synthetic images or fake audio.
Last week, cyber-security experts at Microsoft said they had found evidence China had employed AI images and audio during Taiwan’s elections in an attempt to sow discord.
Sir Nick, however, claimed there was so far little evidence of AI bots being widely used to spread disinformation.
He said: “It is right that we should be alert. So far what has been very striking is how little these tools have been used on a systemic basis.”
Last year, thousands of scientists called for a six-month moratorium on the development of the most powerful AI amid concerns they posed a potential existential threat to human life.