Anthropic's Olah says AI must be guided from outside Big Tech

Anthropic ​co-founder Chris Olah said ​on Monday that ‌the ​development of artificial intelligence cannot be left solely to technology ‌companies, urging greater oversight from religious leaders, governments and civil society.

Anthropic ​co-founder Chris Olah said ​on Monday that ‌the ​development of artificial intelligence cannot be left solely to technology ‌companies, urging greater oversight from religious leaders, governments and civil society. Speaking in the Vatican at the presentation of ‌Pope Leo's first encyclical on artificial intelligence, Olah ‌said there was "a real possibility" that AI will displace human labor "at very large scale".

"If that happens, supporting those ⁠displaced ​will be ⁠a moral imperative of historic proportions," he said, sitting alongside the ⁠pope. He added that companies like his operated under ​strong commercial, geopolitical and personal pressures that can be ⁠at odds with the broader interests of society.

"Every frontier ⁠AI ​lab ... operates inside a set of incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing ⁠the right thing," he said, adding that even well-intentioned researchers ⁠remain ⁠influenced by those forces. Olah said this made outside scrutiny essential.