- OpenAI’s Chris Lehane says negative views on AI ‘have consequences’
- AI can “create incredible economic opportunities,” he says
- Public opinion on AI as a whole is not very positive
Chris Lehane, vice president of global policy at OpenAI, wants to reframe conversations around AI and its benefits for humanity, telling San Francisco Standard“”This isn’t fun and games… This is some serious shit.
“Our job at OpenAI and in the AI field – and we need to do a much better job – is to explain to people why…this is going to be really good for them, for their families and for society as a whole,” Lehane said.
Trust in AI continues to decline among the US population, with a recent Pew poll finding that only 17% believe AI will have a positive impact on the US over the next 20 years.
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Public opinion is not on AI’s side
Commenting on both sides of the AI debate, Lehane said: “You have a group that is effectively saying, ‘This is going to be the best thing ever, everyone is going to live in houses by the sea, painting with watercolors as they go about their days.’ And then there is another extreme, which I would call the Doomers, who have a very, very negative and dark view of humanity. »
He added that AI companies have not helped these prospects by making announcements and comments about how AI could impact the future. “A series of things have been published – but not come to fruition – about extreme things that are going to happen,” he said.
Lehane said he understands that people are worried about the effects AI could have on society, particularly on the job market, bills and the potential harm it could cause to children, but he compared those concerns to worries people had before other technological advances.
Contrary to Lehane’s remarks, the negative effects of AI are already being felt by ordinary people, with almost none of the promised benefits. Block has cut nearly 40% of its workforce in favor of AI alternatives. Pinterest is expected to lay off 15% of its workforce in 2026 and replace them with AI. Many other companies, including HP, IBM, Salesforce and more, have announced AI-related job cuts.
Call me a “pessimist,” but job cuts, data centers driving up energy prices, and increasing cases of AI-related psychosis may provide a reasonable basis for distrusting the promised benefits of AI.
So what’s on the table? A recently published OpenAI white paper [PDF] explored all the ways AI can “create incredible economic opportunities,” says Lehane.
These include “adaptive safety nets that work for everyone,” funded “by an increasing reliance on capital-based revenues, such as higher taxes on capital gains at the top, corporate income, or measures targeted at sustained returns generated by AI.”
The white paper also asserts that AI can “help solve scientific challenges that have yet eluded human effort: curing or preventing disease, alleviating food shortages, strengthening agriculture in the face of climate stress, and accelerating breakthroughs in clean, reliable energy.”
The paper concludes: “We offer these ideas not as fixed answers but as a starting point for a broader conversation about how to ensure AI benefits everyone. »
Convincing the general public that OpenAI still has humanity’s best interests at heart is a difficult task, especially given the upheaval and corporate evolution of a company that began as a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that AI “benefits all humanity.”
Countering the growing opposition to building data centers and developing AI will be a different battle altogether.
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