OpenAI will initially be a team of just nine but this could double next year, according to fellow investor Sam Altman, president of seed funding incubator Y Combinator.
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While OpenAI won’t necessarily prevent the rise of killer robots it may well provide a countenance to them by positioning itself ahead of the field and using what it learns for good versus evil…well, that’s the theory anyway.
OpenAI adds that they believe it’s important to have a leading research institution that can prioritize good outcome over its own self-interest when human-level AI comes into reach.
While the backers have ponied up a vast sum, OpenAI said it expects to spend a “tiny fraction” of the $1 billion in the next few years. Other advisers will include Yoshua Bengio, one of the founding figures of the Deep Leaning form of artificial intelligence, and Alan Kay, a computer scientist from the US.
The Infosys CEO had earlier expressed interest in acquiring companies in areas like automation and artificial intelligence. He believes that since there is no evidence of life on Mars and in the best case that could only be found as subterranean microbial life, it would be nearly immoral for humans not to colonize the Red planet if that would be our only chance of survival as a species.
Tech giants including Tesla’s Elon Musk and venture capitalist Peter Thiel have banded together to pitch in a cool $US1 billion ($1.39 billion) to found a non-profit devoted to researching artificial intelligence. Researchers will be strongly encouraged to publish their work, whether as papers, blog posts, or code, and our patents (if any) will be shared with the world. The chief technology officer is Greg Brockman, formerly the CTO of Stripe, an electronic payment company.
Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk has already got a lot on his plate, but that hasn’t stopped the ambitious tech entrepreneur from starting up yet another new venture: OpenAI, a not-for-profit research company dedicated to advancing the science and ethics of artificial intelligence (AI).
One shouldn’t imagine, he said, that technological progress is a given.
Mankind may only have a brief window to set foot on Mars before a disaster such as a third World War makes it no longer possible, Elon Musk has warned.
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The effort, called OpenAI, joins significant investments from companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon, which have used artificial intelligence to sharpen their businesses with services such as facial recognition or language processing.
