The News
OpenAI urged US midterm candidates on both sides of the aisle to shed their binary accelerationist or doomer labels, in favor of a policy agenda that allows everyone to have “a fair chance.”
In a blog post Monday, chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane detailed proposals, based on questions he said he’s been getting from candidates, that included offering free access to basic AI tools, a national tracker for tech-driven productivity gains, promoting public-benefit corporate structures, and age verification for children.
It’s an unusually detailed, bold set of proposals that goes further than what many other AI companies have been willing to say publicly, and it’s notably different from Trump’s own AI Action Plan. While the two documents agree on the threat of China’s AI ambitions, Lehane more so emphasizes the need to show how AI can improve safety measures, clean energy, and other use cases that appeal to voters.
Know More
OpenAI took a step on one of these items Tuesday, announcing a model that predicts whether a user is a minor based on their behavior and usage patterns — a challenge that has beguiled the tech industry for decades. The platform automatically adds guardrails to those accounts, and adults who were incorrectly flagged can lift those restrictions by submitting a photo for visual age verification. The process sidesteps the need for most users to provide identifiable information like a driver’s license, one of the main criticisms of age verification technologies due to privacy and security risks.