This Week in AI: Can we (and could we ever) trust OpenAI?

Comment

Keeping up with an industry as fast-moving as AI is a tall order. So until an AI can do it for you, here’s a handy roundup of recent stories in the world of machine learning, along with notable research and experiments we didn’t cover on their own.
By the way, TechCrunch plans to launch an AI newsletter on June 5. Stay tuned. In the meantime, we’re upping the cadence of our semiregular AI column, which was previously twice a month (or so), to weekly — so be on the lookout for more editions.
This week in AI, OpenAI launched discounted plans for nonprofits and education customers and drew back the curtains on its most recent efforts to stop bad actors from abusing its AI tools. There’s not much to criticize, there — at least not in this writer’s opinion. But I will say that the deluge of announcements seemed timed to counter the company’s bad press as of late.
Let’s start with Scarlett Johansson. OpenAI removed one of the voices used by its AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT after users pointed out that it sounded eerily similar to Johansson’s. Johansson later released a statement saying that she hired legal counsel to inquire about the voice and get exact details about how it was developed — and that she’d refused repeated entreaties from OpenAI to license her voice for ChatGPT.
Now, a piece in The Washington Post implies that OpenAI didn’t in fact seek to clone Johansson’s voice and that any similarities were accidental. But why, then, did OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reach out to Johansson and urge her to reconsider two days before a splashy demo that featured the soundalike voice? It’s a tad suspect.
Then there’s OpenAI’s trust and safety issues.
As we reported earlier in the month, OpenAI’s since-dissolved Superalignment team, responsible for developing ways to govern and steer “superintelligent” AI systems, was promised 20% of the company’s compute resources — but only ever (and rarely) received a fraction of this. That (among other reasons) led to the resignation of the teams’ two co-leads, Jan Leike and Ilya Sutskever, formerly OpenAI’s chief scientist.
Nearly a dozen safety experts have left OpenAI in the past year; several, including Leike, have publicly voiced concerns that the company is prioritizing commercial projects over safety and transparency efforts. In response to the criticism, OpenAI formed a new committee to oversee safety and security decisions related to the company’s projects and operations. But it staffed the committee with company insiders — including Altman — rather than outside observers. This as OpenAI reportedly considers ditching its nonprofit structure in favor of a traditional for-profit model.
Incidents like these make it harder to trust OpenAI, a company whose power and influence grows daily (see: its deals with news publishers). Few corporations, if any, are worthy of trust. But OpenAI’s market-disrupting technologies make the violations all the more troubling.
It doesn’t help matters that Altman himself isn’t exactly a beacon of truthfulness.
When news of OpenAI’s aggressive tactics toward former employees broke — tactics that entailed threatening employees with the loss of their vested equity, or the prevention of equity sales, if they didn’t sign restrictive nondisclosure agreements — Altman apologized and claimed he had no knowledge of the policies. But, according to Vox, Altman’s signature is on the incorporation documents that enacted the policies.
And if former OpenAI board member Helen Toner is to be believed — one of the ex-board members who attempted to remove Altman from his post late last year — Altman has withheld information, misrepresented things that were happening at OpenAI and in some cases outright lied to the board. Toner says that the board learned of the release of ChatGPT through Twitter, not from Altman; that Altman gave wrong information about OpenAI’s formal safety practices; and that Altman, displeased with an academic paper Toner co-authored that cast a critical light on OpenAI, tried to manipulate board members to push Toner off the board.
None of it bodes well.
Here are some other AI stories of note from the past few days:
Every weekday and Sunday, you can get the best of TechCrunch’s coverage.
Startups are the core of TechCrunch, so get our best coverage delivered weekly.
The latest Fintech news and analysis, delivered every Tuesday.
TechCrunch Mobility is your destination for transportation news and insight.
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice.
Less than one year after its iOS launch, French startup ten ten has gone viral with a walkie talkie app that allows teens to send voice messages to their close…
Featured Article
While all of Wesley Chan’s success has been well-documented over the years, his personal journey…not so much. Chan spoke to TechCrunch about the ways his life impacts how he invests in startups.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump now has an account on the short-form video app that he once tried to ban. Trump’s TikTok account, which launched on Saturday night, features…
With fewer than 400,000 inhabitants, Iceland receives more than its fair share of tourists — and of venture capital.
Kobo put out a handful of new e-readers a few weeks back: color versions of the excellent Libra 2 and Clara, as well as an updated monochrome version of the…
In an interview at his home near Reykjavík, the entrepreneur-turned-VC shared thoughts on his ventures and the journey that led him from Unity to climate tech, a homecoming of sorts.
Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review — TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. Over the past eight years,…
What is AI? We’ve put together this non-technical guide to give anyone a fighting chance to understand how and why today’s AI works.
President Joe Biden has vetoed H.J.Res. 109, a congressional resolution that would have overturned the Securities and Exchange Commission’s current approach to banks and crypto. Specifically, the resolution targeted the…
Featured Article
How large a role humanoids will play in that ecosystem is, perhaps, the biggest question on everyone’s mind at the moment.
VCs are clamoring to invest in hot AI companies, and willing to pay exorbitant share prices for coveted spots on their cap tables. Even so, most aren’t able to get…
The fashion industry has a huge problem: Despite many returned items being unworn or undamaged, a lot, if not the majority, end up in the trash. An estimated 9.5 billion…
Tumblr officially shut down “Tips,” an opt-in feature where creators could receive one-time payments from their followers.  As of today, the tipping icon has automatically disappeared from all posts and…
Generative AI improvements are increasingly being made through data curation and collection — not architectural — improvements. Big Tech has an advantage.
Keeping up with an industry as fast-moving as AI is a tall order. So until an AI can do it for you, here’s a handy roundup of recent stories in the world…
Jasper Health, a cancer care platform startup, laid off a substantial part of its workforce, TechCrunch has learned.
Featured Article
Live Nation says its Ticketmaster subsidiary was hacked. A hacker claims to be selling 560 million customer records.
Featured Article
An autonomous pod. A solid-state battery-powered sports car. An electric pickup truck. A convertible grand tourer EV with up to 600 miles of range. A “fully connected mobility device” for young urban innovators to be built by Foxconn and priced under $30,000. The next Popemobile. Over the past eight years, famed vehicle designer Henrik Fisker…
Late Friday afternoon, a time window companies usually reserve for unflattering disclosures, AI startup Hugging Face said that its security team earlier this week detected “unauthorized access” to Spaces, Hugging…
Featured Article
Using stalkerware is creepy, unethical, potentially illegal, and puts your data and that of your loved ones in danger.
The design brief was simple: each grind and dry cycle had to be completed before breakfast. Here’s how Mill made it happen.
Google is embarrassed about its AI Overviews, too. After a deluge of dunks and memes over the past week, which cracked on the poor quality and outright misinformation that arose…
Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje‘s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. In…
The product, which ZeroMark calls a “fire control system,” has two components: a small computer that has sensors, like lidar and electro-optical, and a motorized buttstock.
The RAW Dating App aims to shake up the dating scheme by shedding the fake, TikTok-ified, heavily filtered photos and replacing them with a more genuine, unvarnished experience. The app…
Yes, we’re calling it “ThreadsDeck” now. At least that’s the tag many are using to describe the new user interface for Instagram’s X competitor, Threads, which resembles the column-based format…
Japanese crypto exchange DMM Bitcoin confirmed on Friday that it had been the victim of a hack resulting in the theft of 4,502.9 bitcoin, or about $305 million.  According to…
This is not a drill! Today marks the final day to secure your early-bird tickets for TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 at a significantly reduced rate. At midnight tonight, May 31, ticket…
Instagram is testing a way for creators to experiment with reels without committing to having them displayed on their profiles, giving the social network a possible edge over TikTok and…
U.S. federal regulators have requested more information from Zoox, Amazon’s self-driving unit, as part of an investigation into rear-end crash risks posed by unexpected braking. The National Highway Traffic Safety…
Powered by WordPress VIP

source
Sponsor:News technical sponsor
Sponsor:News AI sponsor
Sponsor: AI sponsor
Sponsor: AI sponsor