OpenAI fiasco triggers serious calls for guardrails around AI industry

The nail-biting drama around Sam Altman being sacked from OpenAI, joining Satya Nadella-run Microsoft and then returning to OpenAI -- all within a span of six days -- has alerted governments and regulators and the call to apply guardrails on AI industry is now more vocal than ever.

Couple of days before his ouster, Altman had said at a tech event that big regulatory changes weren’t needed for current AI models, but would be soon.

“We don’t need heavy regulation here or probably for the next couple generations. But at some point, when a model can do the equivalent output of a whole company, or a whole country, or a whole world, maybe we do want some collective supervision around that,” he said on a panel at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco.

However, the OpenAI fiasco has once again triggered the call to regulate AI in such a way that such episodes are not repeated. France, Germany and Italy have reached an agreement on how AI should be regulated.

However, businesses and tech groups have cautioned the European Union against excessive regulation of foundation models in upcoming AI rules.

“For Europe to become a global digital powerhouse, we need companies that can lead on AI innovation also using foundation models and the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI),” DigitalEurope, whose members include Airbus, Apple, Ericsson, Google, LSE and SAP, wrote in a letter.