“We created OpenAI partly because industry is investing such vast sums of money into A. I.
research that commercial, private entities were on track to create the first powerful A. I.
systems, and these entities don’t have a built-in mechanism to ensure that everyone benefits from advances,” Mr. Brockman told me in an email.
The company understands that the A. I.-based projects
that succeed could be transformational: They will alter existing industries and create huge new ones, including a stream of new businesses from which Google can profit.
But the tech industry’s huge investments in A. I.
might also be cause for alarm, because they are not balanced by anywhere near that level of investment by the government.
Google, Not the Government, Is Building the Future -
One persistent criticism of Silicon Valley is that it no longer works on big, world-changing ideas.
With greater federal funding, the report said, researchers could focus more on basic
research — more tenuous, potentially less immediately applicable areas of A. I.
Technology companies aren’t just funding big things — they are funding the biggest, most world-changing things.
Greg Brockman, a founder and chief technology officer of OpenAI, an artificial intelligence research firm, echoed this idea.