Just two years ago OpenAI didn’t exist. It’s now among the most elite groups of machine learning researchers. They’re trying to make an AI that’s smarter than humans and have $1b at their disposal.
Even stranger for a Silicon Valley start-up, it’s not a business, but rather a non-profit founded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman among others, to ensure the benefits of AI are distributed broadly to all of society.
I did a long interview with one of its first machine learning researchers, Dr Dario Amodei, to learn about:
* OpenAI’s latest plans and research progress. * His paper Concrete Problems in AI Safety, which outlines five specific ways machine learning algorithms can act in dangerous ways their designers don’t intend - something OpenAI has to work to avoid. * How listeners can best go about pursuing a career in machine learning and AI development themselves.
1m33s - What OpenAI is doing, Dario’s research and why AI is important 13m - Why OpenAI scaled back its Universe project 15m50s - Why AI could be dangerous 24m20s - Would smarter than human AI solve most of the world’s problems? 29m - Paper on five concrete problems in AI safety 43m48s - Has OpenAI made progress? 49m30s - What this back flipping noodle can teach you about AI safety 55m30s - How someone can pursue a career in AI safety and get a job at OpenAI 1h02m30s - Where and what should people study? 1h4m15s - What other paradigms for AI are there? 1h7m55s - How do you go from studying to getting a job? What places are there to work? 1h13m30s - If there's a 17-year-old listening here what should they start reading first? 1h19m - Is this a good way to develop your broader career options? Is it a safe move? 1h21m10s - What if you’re older and haven’t studied machine learning? How do you break in? 1h24m - What about doing this work in academia? 1h26m50s - Is the work frustrating because solutions may not exist? 1h31m35s - How do we prevent a dangerous arms race? 1h36m30s - Final remarks on how to get into doing useful work in machine learning