CEO Sam Altman believes regulation of artificial intelligence is necessary but without excessive restrictions. Pending the approval of specific laws, OpenAI has decided to offer one million dollars to researchers from all over the world to start a democratic process that allows establishing which rules AI should follow.
Democratic decision on the rules
OpenAI emphasizes that laws can regulate artificial intelligence, but we need more complex guidelines to cover all cases. Technology must benefit all of humanity and be as inclusive as possible. For this reason, we must establish the rules through a democratic process, involving a representative group of people who exchange opinions and transparently make decisions.
However, several problems can invalidate the democratic process, such as the lack of representation of minorities, the manipulation of interest groups, and poorly informed participants. OpenAI has therefore decided to offer a sum of 100,000 dollars to 10 recipients (individuals, teams, or organizations) who will propose a plan for the development of a democratic process based on eight factors, including inclusiveness, representativeness, moderation, scalability, and readability. Participants can send their proposals by 24 June 2023, using the dedicated portal.
OpenAI Website.
The OpenAI website provides a list of questions that could be included in the questionnaires. The winners, chosen on July 14, 2023, will have to implement a "prototype" to evaluate the effectiveness of the democratic process on a group of at least 500 people. They must disclose the public test results by October 20, 2023, under an open-source license.