Rift over future of AI development

Sam Altman was fired on Nov 17 from the company that created the popular ChatGPT chatbot. To many, he was considered the human face of generative AI. — Reuters

THE rift that cost artificial-intelligence whiz kid Sam Altman his CEO job at OpenAI reflects a fundamental difference of opinion over safety, broadly, between two camps developing the world-altering software and pondering its societal impact.

On one side are those, like Altman, who view the rapid development and, especially, public deployment of AI as essential to stress-testing and perfecting the technology. On the other side are those who say the safest path forward is to fully develop and test AI in a laboratory first to ensure it is, so to speak, safe for human consumption.