Mustafa Suleyman is one of the world’s leading entrepreneurs in the field of artificial intelligence and has co-founded more than one company two Startups on the cutting edge of the most transformative technology since the internet.
Mr. Suleyman, 39, is CEO of Inflection AI, the company he co-founded last year with Reid Hoffman, a LinkedIn co-founder. In June, the company closed a $1.3 billion funding round involving Microsoft and Nvidia, the leading AI chip maker, which reportedly valued the company at around $4 billion. (The Chatbot Pi is designed as a personal digital companion.)
Mr. Suleyman also co-founded DeepMind, an AI pioneer that Google acquired in 2014. Early last year, he left Google and joined Greylock Partners, a venture capital firm where Hoffman is also a partner.
Now he has written a book called The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the 21st Century’s Greatest Dilemma, which calls for an urgent change in the way we think about and “contain” AI. If this fails, AI will disappear, he says. We humans are in the worst situation: we cannot take advantage of the huge opportunities presented by AI and risk being subjugated by a technology that poses an existential threat.
Mr. Suleyman wants governments to regulate AI and appoint cabinet-level technology ministers and says the United States should use its dominance in advanced chips to enforce global standards. He has also called for the creation of a governance system modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to make the work of private companies in AI more transparent.
Such arguments may be difficult to make at a time of rising global tensions, but they are timely as lawmakers put forward proposals on how AI should be monitored. Senate leader Chuck Schumer will meet top tech executives this week, including Elon Musk and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, to discuss regulations.
Mr. Suleyman spoke to DealBook about his book, which was published last week. This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Why write a book – a very analog approach – to outline your ideas?
It is a form of radical responsibility. I want to be able to look back in a decade and see if my predictions were correct. And doing that publicly is very intellectually honest and healthy, rather than doing it in a series of tweets, blog posts and comments.
Why do you describe the book as a “love letter” to the nation state?
It is a wake-up call to policymakers, politicians and citizens. We have invented a system of non-commercial controls that hold centralized power accountable in the public interest. This system has evolved over many years away from monarchy, dictatorship and authoritarianism towards a free and open liberal democracy. This means that we can prevent inequality through sensible taxation and redistribution. This is the best tool we have, so we should stick with it and keep trying to defend it.
You suggested a new Turing test To understand the power of AI and what jobs will be replaced: Give an AI $100,000 and ask it to make $1 million on an online retail platform. How would that work?
The real question for the next decade is: What can artificial intelligence achieve in practice? I have proposed a very simple framework that attempts to cover a wide range of skills a small business owner might have. Can you come up with a new product idea, design it, manufacture it, promote it, and then try to make a profit? These skills – creativity, imagination, negotiation planning, logistics, prioritization, collaboration – are fundamental to success in the workplace. If an AI can do 20, 50, or 90 percent of these tasks, that tells us something very profound about what we are unleashing in the world and what other types of jobs it could replace.
How did your colleagues react to your ideas?
There are many different clusters in Silicon Valley. People like Satya are very forward-thinking about these things and are definitely taking responsibility for companies to do the right thing.
But there are certainly skeptics. Marc Andreessen, the venture capital investor, simply believes there won’t be much downside. Everything will be well and good. I’m just as much of an accelerationist as Andreessen, but I’m just more open and comfortable talking about the potential harms, and I think that’s a more intellectually honest position.
How do you see the state of relations between democratic governments and Silicon Valley?
We are seeing many positive signs on this front. Tech companies are engaging meaningfully and governments are starting to be proactive. This hasn’t always happened, so we’re already on the right track. The truth is that this is just the beginning. A lot more hard work is needed, but the fundamentals are starting to emerge.
Source : www.nytimes.com