Noah Berger and Hannibal Hanschk via Associated Press
- LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman told CNBC the call for an AI slow down is a "mistaken effort."
- Hoffman said some people are issuing the warning in order to catch up with the technology.
- He said Elon Musk has an "it's only great if I do it" mentality when it comes to ChatGPT.
LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman called Elon Musk and other tech executives' call to slow down AI advances a "mistaken effort" during an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Wednesday.
Hoffman said that while he thinks some of the calls to slow down the development of AI chatbots like ChatGPT are "well intentioned" inasmuch as it is important to protect against the "downsides" of the technology, he believes some of the executives are acting out of self-interest.
"I think some of it's a little bit less well intentioned, like 'Everyone else slow down, so I can speed up,'' Hoffman said. "It's overall, I think, broadly a mistaken effort because actually I think everything we've seen so far in terms of development is the best ways to get safety is through larger scale models — they actually train to align better with human interests, and so the call to slow down is actually, in fact, less safe."
Last month, Musk, as well as other tech titans like Steve Wozniak, signed an open letter calling for a pause on AI development and warning that AI systems like OpenAI's GPT-4 pose a potential risk to humanity.
Both Musk and Hoffman helped found OpenAI in 2015, but Musk left the company's board of directors in 2018 and has been critical of the company ever since.
Hoffman left OpenAI's board last month, citing a conflict of interest due to his desire to invest in companies that would use OpenAI's software. At the time, Hoffman said organizations that use large language models, including OpenAI's technology, could become "future trillion-dollar companies."
Hoffman, who is a PayPal Mafia member and a longtime friend of Musk, said that while he believes Musk's reasoning for signing the open letter is "well intentioned," it's also indicative of the Tesla CEO's overall mentality as a businessman.
"Elon tends to have a 'I must build it with my own hands'" approach, Hoffman said. "You look at what amazing stuff he's done with SpaceX and Tesla, and it has the kind of 'It's only great if I do it.'"
Meanwhile, Hoffman said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is more interested in getting "a bunch of people involved" and having a more distributed company governance. Despite his longtime friendship with Musk, Hoffman said he's "much more on the path that OpenAI has gone" when it comes to developing the technology.
Spokespeople for Musk, Hoffman, and OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.
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