Don't Look Up moment today when Richard Blumenthal asked OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for his "biggest nightmare." He didn't answer, so Gary Marcus asked again because Altman himself has said the worst case is "lights out for all of us." Altman euphemized: "significant harm to the world."

@SenBlumenthal @OpenAI @GaryMarcus Imagine the whole reason for existence of the company you represent is supposed to be to prevent AI risk, you have a chance to speak before congress and when asked your worst fear you say “what we do with our time” ..and.. “significant harm”

@SenBlumenthal @OpenAI @GaryMarcus Most people have five senses. CEOs develop a special sixth sense to avoid creating dangerous sound bytes, much like Spider-Man but far less cool.

@SenBlumenthal @OpenAI @GaryMarcus A lot of word salad for him to simply say it is an existensial risk.

His job is to walk out of Washington having scared them just enough to give him and his company a monopoly. He’s avoiding liability and marketing his company, trying to say “it’s in good hands with us” even though he’s demonstrated a complete lack of understand of his own tech, as well as economics, psychology…

@SenBlumenthal @OpenAI @GaryMarcus "We've tried to be very clear about the risks" ... goes on to dodge the question.

@SenBlumenthal @OpenAI @GaryMarcus George Carlin AI take on this!

@SenBlumenthal @OpenAI @GaryMarcus To be fair, I think this is fine. The guy is proposing serious regulation. I'm not sure he needs to talk about x-risk at every good opportunity

@SenBlumenthal @OpenAI @GaryMarcus Sociologist here too (tech is my job, soc my education) Funny thing is he was not that concerned about it when he dumped it like a digital nuclear bomb into the world so he could get funding.

@GaryMarcus @SenBlumenthal @OpenAI Anyway the takeaway is that Missouri is a great place.

@SenBlumenthal @OpenAI @GaryMarcus I feel like the credibility hit would have been significant.