Sam Altman: UAE could lead the formation of a global AI watchdog
OpenAI’s Sam Altman had two suggestions for the UAE’s Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence Omar Al Olama at the World Governments Summit in Dubai on Tuesday.
Altman said that the UAE could be the world’s regulatory sandbox to experiment with AI technologies and the country is well placed to lead the formation of a global AI watchdog.
“It’s very hard to get all the regulatory ideas right in a vacuum,” Altman said while appearing via video, adding that allowing experimentation and running scenarios would make for better laws governing the fast-evolving technology.
The ChatGPT creator repeated a recommendation that both he and Al Olama have made in the past: that there should be an oversight body like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to address open existential questions. “What happens with the most powerful of these systems?” Altman said. “What sort of auditing, safety measures do we want in place before we deploy a super-intelligence?”
The conversation onstage comes as Altman looks to raise trillions of dollars to amass the semiconductors needed to power advanced AI, and is reportedly courting the UAE as an investor.
The UAE has made AI leadership, with Abu Dhabi-backed G42 at the forefront, the foundation of its economic transformation aims. As a result, the country has become a crossroads for some of the biggest players in AI.
Later this week Nvidia, in partnership with Microsoft, will host an event for generative AI content creators in Abu Dhabi. Founder Jensen Huang appeared at WGS on Monday.
Jensen Huang: Countries must protect ‘data sovereignty’
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates – Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made a strong sales pitch to the UAE’s Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence Omar Al Olama onstage today at the World Governments Summit in Dubai. More than 25 world leaders, 140 governments and 85 international organizations are among the 4,000 attendees at the three-day event under the theme “Shaping Future Governments.”
The semiconductor chief, whose California-headquartered firm has a $1.73 trillion market cap, said that every country should have its own AI infrastructure and protect its “data sovereignty.” Doing so would capture the most economic upside, he said, adding that companies in the Gulf like Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi-backed G42 are already doing this. “You cannot allow that to be done by other people,” Huang said. “Build the infrastructure as fast as you can.”
Minister Al Olama asked Huang about the eye-watering $7 trillion OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is seeking — and reportedly courting UAE investors on — to realize his biggest ambitions for ChatGPT. Huang quipped that Altman was apparently looking to buy “all” of the world’s AI chips.
In October of last year, the U.S. expanded restrictions on chips and Nvidia said at the time it was working with customers in China and the Middle East to obtain export licenses for new products to comply. Huang did not provide an update on the issue today. On Friday, G42 said it has sold its stakes in Chinese companies including TikTok owner ByteDance, as the group seeks to reassure U.S. partners by cutting ties with China, the Financial Times reports.
