Sam Altman: "Israel will play a huge role in AI development"
The CEO and founder of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, was speaking after meeting Israel’s President Isaac Herzog during a visit to the country. During the meeting, Herzog congratulated Altman on the letter he published together with other senior officials in the industry regarding the dangers of artificial intelligence
President Isaac Herzog met this morning with Sam Altman, CEO and founder of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, during his brief visit to Israel. Altman did not meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but ultimately spoke with him on the phone.
The President opened his remarks by saying: “We are very excited to welcome you to Israel. Your visit has created enormous interest across the country – a country that wants to do good and serve the world with purpose.”
Herzog congratulated Altman on the letter he published together with other senior executives in the industry regarding the dangers of artificial intelligence, saying: "We must make sure that this development is used for the wellbeing of humanity. You can see the advantages and disadvantages, and you are the first to mention it openly and boldly.
"The issues of ethics, and morality, questions of fake news, show the risks and I truly agree with you that this is like developing nuclear weapons. Therefore there has to be an international convention and organization that will deal with it.”
Herzog also added that "this field fascinates me on a personal and national level, and Israel wants to be part of the development of this field. I really want to be personally involved in leading a discussion within Israel and at the international level on issues of morality and ethics and other aspects of this technology."
Also attending the meeting from OpenAI were Ilya Sutskever, the company’s founding partner and its chief scientist; Brad Lightcap, Chief Operating Officer; and Anna Makanju , Chief Public Policy Officer.
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Altman thanked the President and said: “I think the intent is really there. The energy on making use of the technology and its positive benefits is fantastic to see, and I am sure Israel will play a huge role – it’s tech community is truly amazing.”
Later in the day, Altman spoke at Tel Aviv University, and echoed a similar sentiment. "The absolute amount of talents, this is a smallish country that punches way above its weight and has lots of talented people that you can get clustered into areas. And then the second is just this sort of relentless drive and vision level of Israeli entrepreneurs," he said. "Those two things together I think often lead to incredible prosperity, both in terms of AI research and AI applications."
