The former director of OpenAI, who worked to oust CEO Sam Altman, has issued some of the strongest warnings about the future of artificial intelligence.

In an interview during the AI+ Summit, Helen Toner – a former OpenAI board member suggested that the dangers AI poses to humanity are not just worst-case scenarios from science fiction.


“I think sometimes people hear the phrase ‘existential threat’ and they just think Skynet and robots shooting people,” Toner points out, referring to the evil AI technology from the Terminator movies, which is mostly used as a metaphor for more have you been. the case of raising AI.

“There are many other ways that AI can take things in a bad direction, and we are doing ourselves a disservice by ignoring these very specific stories,” she asserted.

Toner built her career as a principal researcher at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Technology, researching technology threats. During her tenure, she criticized OpenAI’s security protocols in a security report that potentially led to Altman’s brief departure from OpenAI late last November.

“This is a very powerful technology. We don’t know how it works. It’s currently being developed and pushed forward by a very small group of people,” Toner said.

However, aside from demystifying AI, Toner now has a somewhat different view than he did six months ago.

“I definitely want to give the new board a chance. They have many new structures, which we cannot